HISTORY OF FRANCE
By M. Guizot
Volume 1 (of 6)
CONTENTS
EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO THE PUBLISHERS.
CHAPTER I. GAUL.CHAPTER II. THE GAULS OUT OF GAUL.
CHAPTER III. THE ROMANS IN GAUL.
CHAPTER IV. GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS
CAESAR.CHAPTER V. GAUL
UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.CHAPTER VI. ESTABLISHMENT
OF CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL.CHAPTER VII. THE
GERMANS IN GAUL.—THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS.CHAPTER VIII. THE MEROVINGIANS.
CHAPTER IX. THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE.
THE PEPINS.CHAPTER X. CHARLEMAGNE
AND HIS WARS.CHAPTER XI. CHARLEMAGNE
AND HIS GOVERNMENT.CHAPTER XII. DECAY
AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS.CHAPTER
XIII. FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET.CHAPTER XIV. THE CAPETIANS TO THE
TIME OF THE CRUSADES.CHAPTER XV. CONQUEST
OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS.CHAPTER XVI. THE
CRUSADES, THEIR ORIGIN AND THEIR SUCCESS.ILLUSTRATIONS
Ideal Landscape of Ancient Gaul——13
Gyptis Presenting the Goblet to Euxenes——17
A Tribe of Gauls on an Expedition——27
The Women Defending the Cars——58
The Roman Army Invading Gaul——61
Vercingetorix Surrenders to Caesar——81
Gaul Subjugated by the Romans——83
Eponina and Sabinus Hidden in a Vault——97
Druids Offering Human Sacrifices——111
The Huns at the Battle of Chalons——135
“Thus Didst Thou to the Vase of Soissons.”——139
The Sluggard King Journeying——156
“Thrust Him Away, Or Thou Diest in his Stead.”——160
The Execution of Brunehaut——175
“The Arabs Had Decamped Silently in the Night.”——195
Charlemagne at the Head of his Army——212
Charlemagne Inflicting Baptism Upon the Saxons——215
The Submission of Wittikind——218
Death of Roland at Roncesvalles——227
Charlemagne and the General Assembly——239
Charlemagne Presiding at the School of The
Palace——246He Remained There a Long While, and his Eyes
Were Filled With Tears.——255Paris Besieged by the Normans——259
The Barks of the Northmen Before Paris——260
Count Eudes Re-entering Paris Right Through the
Besiegers- —-262Ditcar the Monk Recognizing The Head of Morvan——273
Gerbert, Afterwards Pope Sylvester Ii——304
Robert Had a Kindly Feeling for the Weak and
Poor——313Normans Landing on English Coast——353
William the Conqueror Reviewing his Army——357
Edith Discovers the Body of Harold——360
EXTRACT FROM LETTER TO THE PUBLISHERS.
Every history, and especially that of France, is one vast, long drama, in
which events are linked together according to defined laws, and in which
the actors play parts not ready made and learned by heart, parts
depending, in fact, not only upon the accidents of their birth, but also
upon their own ideas and their own will. There are, in the history of
peoples, two sets of causes essentially different, and, at the same time,
closely connected; the natural causes which are set over the general
course of events, and the unrestricted causes which are incidental. Men do
not make the whole of history it has laws of higher origin; but, in
history, men are unrestricted agents who produce for it results and
exercise over it an influence for which they are responsible. The fated
causes and the unrestricted causes, the defined laws of events and the
spontaneous actions of man’s free agency—herein is the whole of
history. And in the faithful reproduction of these two elements consist
the truth and the moral of stories from it.
Never was I more struck with this two-fold character of history than in my
tales to my grandchildren. When I commenced with them, they, beforehand,
evinced a lively interest, and they began to listen to me with serious
good will; but when they did not well apprehend the lengthening chain of
events, or when historical personages did not become, in their eyes,
creatures real and free, worthy of sympathy or reprobation, when the drama
was not developed before them with clearness and animation, I saw their
attention grow fitful and flagging; they required light and life together;
they wished to be illumined and excited, instructed and amused.
At the same time that the difficulty of satisfying this two-fold desire
was painfully felt by me, I discovered therein more means and chances than
I had at first foreseen of succeeding in making my young audience
comprehend the history of France in its complication and its grandeur.
When Corneille observed,—
“In the well-born soul Valor ne’er lingers till due seasons roll,”—
he spoke as truly for intelligence as for valor. When once awakened and
really attentive, young minds are more earnest and more capable of
complete comprehension than any one would suppose. In order to explain
fully to my grandchildren the connection of events and the influence of
historical personages, I was sometimes led into very comprehensive
considerations and into pretty deep studies of character. And in such
cases I was nearly always not only perfectly understood but keenly
appreciated. I put it to the proof in the sketch of Charlemagne’s reign
and character; and the two great objects of that great man, who succeeded
in one and failed in the other, received from my youthful audience the
most riveted attention and the most clear comprehension. Youthful minds
have greater grasp than one is disposed to give them credit for, and,
perhaps, men would do well to be as earnest in their lives as children are
in their studies.
In order to attain the end I had set before me, I always took care to
connect my stories or my reflections with the great events or the great
personages of history. When we wish to examine and describe a district
scientifically, we traverse it in all its divisions and in every
direction; we visit plains as well as mountains, villages as well as
cities, the most obscure corners as well as the most famous spots; this is
the way of proceeding with the geologist, the botanist, the archeologist,
the statistician, the scholar. But when we wish particularly to get an
idea of the chief features of a country, its fixed outlines, its general
conformation, its special aspects, its great roads, we mount the heights;
we place ourselves at points whence we can best take in the totality and
the physiognomy of the landscape. And so we must proceed in history when
we wish neither to reduce it to the skeleton of an abridgment nor extend
it to the huge dimensions of a learned work. Great events and great men
are the fixed points and the peaks of history; and it is thence that we
can observe it in its totality, and follow it along its highways. In my
tales to my grandchildren I sometimes lingered over some particular
anecdote which gave me an opportunity of setting in a vivid light the
dominant spirit of an age or the characteristic manners of a people; but,
with rare exceptions, it is always on the great deeds and the great
personages of history that I have relied for making of them in my tales
what they were in reality—the centre and the focus of the life of
France.
GUIZOT.
VAL-RICHER,
December, 1869.
A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES.
CHAPTER I.
GAUL.
The Frenchman of to-day inhabits a country, long ago civilized and
Christianized, where, despite of much imperfection and much social misery,
thirty-eight millions of men live in security and peace, under laws equal
for all and efficiently upheld. There is every reason to nourish great
hopes of such a country, and to wish for it more and more of freedom,
glory, and prosperity; but one must be just towards one’s own times, and
estimate at their true value advantages already acquired and progress
already accomplished. If one were suddenly carried twenty or thirty
centuries backward, into the midst of that which was then called Gaul, one
would not recognize France. The same mountains reared their heads; the
same plains stretched far and wide; the same rivers rolled on their
course. There is no alteration in the physical formation of the country;
but its aspect was very different. Instead of the fields all trim with
cultivation, and all covered with various produce, one would see
inaccessible morasses and vast forests, as yet uncleared, given up to the
chances of primitive vegetation, peopled with wolves and bears, and even
the urns, or huge wild ox, and with elks, too—a kind of beast
that one finds no longer nowadays, save in the colder regions of
north-eastern Europe, such as Lithuania and Courland. Then wandered over
the champaign great herds of swine, as fierce almost as wolves, tamed only
so far as to know the sound of their keeper’s horn. The better sort of
fruits and of vegetables were quite unknown; they were imported into Gaul—the
greatest part from Asia, a portion from Africa and the islands of the
Mediterranean; and others, at a later period, from the New World. Cold and
rough was the prevailing temperature. Nearly every winter the rivers froze
sufficiently hard for the passage of cars. And three or four centuries
before the Christian era, on that vast territory comprised between the
ocean, the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, the Alps, and the Rhine, lived six
or seven millions of men a bestial life, enclosed in dwellings dark and
low, the best of them built of wood and clay, covered with branches or
straw, made in a single round piece, open to daylight by the door alone,
and confusedly heaped together behind a rampart, not inartistically
composed of timber, earth, and stone, which surrounded and protected what
they were pleased to call a town.
Of even such towns there were scarcely any as yet, save in the most
populous and least uncultivated portion of Gaul; that is to say, in the
southern and eastern regions, at the foot of the mountains of Auvergne and
the Cevennes, and along the coasts of the Mediterranean. In the north and
the west were paltry hamlets, as transferable almost as the people
themselves; and on some islet amidst the morasses, or in some hidden
recess of the forest, were huge intrenchments formed of the trees that
were felled, where the population, at the first sound of the war-cry, ran
to shelter themselves with their flocks and all their movables. And the
war-cry was often heard: men living grossly and idly are very prone to
quarrel and fight. Gaul, moreover, was not occupied by one and the same
nation, with the same traditions and the same chiefs. Tribes very
different in origin, habits, and date of settlement, were continually
disputing the territory. In the south were Iberians or Aquitanians,
Phoenicians and Greeks; in the north and north-west, Kymrians or Belgians;
everywhere else, Gauls or Celts, the most numerous settlers, who had the
honor of giving their name to the country. Who were the first to come,
then? and what was the date of the first settlement? Nobody knows. Of the
Greeks alone does history mark with any precision the arrival in southern
Gaul. The Phoenicians preceded them by several centuries; but it is
impossible to fix any exact time. The information is equally vague about
the period when the Kymrians invaded the north of Gaul. As for the Gauls
and the Iberians, there is not a word about their first entrance into the
country, for they are discovered there already at the first appearance of
the country itself in the domain of history.
The Iberians, whom Roman writers call Aquitanians, dwelt at the foot of
the Pyrenees, in the territory comprised between the mountains, the
Garonne, and the ocean. They belonged to the race which, under the same
appellation, had peopled Spain; but by what route they came into Gaul is a
problem which we cannot solve. It is much the same in tracing the origin
of every nation, for in those barbarous times men lived and died without
leaving any enduring memorial of their deeds and their destinies; no
monuments; no writings; just a few oral traditions, perhaps, which are
speedily lost or altered. It is in proportion as they become enlightened
and civilized, that men feel the desire and discover the means of
extending their memorial far beyond their own lifetime. That is the
beginning of history, the offspring of noble and useful sentiments, which
cause the mind to dwell upon the future, and to yearn for long
continuance; sentiments which testify to the superiority of man over all
other creatures living upon our earth, which foreshadow the immortality of
the soul, and which are warrant for the progress of the human race by
preserving for the generations to come what has been done and learned by
the generations that disappear.
By whatever route and at whatever epoch the Iberians came into the
south-west of Gaul, they abide there still in the department of the Lower
Pyrenees, under the name of Basques; a people distinct from all its
neighbors in features, costume, and especially language, which resembles
none of the present languages of Europe, contains many words which are to
be found in the names of rivers, mountains, and towns of olden Spain, and
which presents a considerable analogy to the idioms, ancient and modern,
of certain peoples of northern Africa. The Phoenicians did not leave, as
the Iberians did, in the south of France distinct and well-authenticated
descendants. They had begun about 1100 B.C. to trade there. They went
thither in search of furs, and gold and silver, which were got either from
the sand of certain rivers, as for instance the Allege (in Latin
Aurigera), or from certain mines of the Alps, the Cevennes, and the
Pyrenees; they brought in exchange stuffs dyed with purple, necklaces and
rings of glass, and, above all, arms and wine; a trade like that which is
nowadays carried on by the civilized peoples of Europe with the savage
tribes of Africa and America. For the purpose of extending and securing
their commercial expeditions, the Phoenicians founded colonies in several
parts of Gaul, and to them is attributed the earliest origin of Nemausus
(Nimes), and of Alesia, near Semur. But, at the end of three or four
centuries, these colonies fell into decay; the trade of the Phoenicians
was withdrawn from Gaul, and the only important sign it preserved of their
residence was a road which, starting from the eastern Pyrenees, skirted
the Gallic portion of the Mediterranean, crossed the Alps by the pass of
Tenda, and so united Spain, Gaul, and Italy. After the withdrawal of the
Phoenicians this road was kept up and repaired, at first by the Greeks of
Marseilles, and subsequently by the Romans.
As merchants and colonists, the Greeks were, in Gaul, the successors of
the Phoenicians, and Marseilles was one of their first and most
considerable colonies. At the time of the Phoenicians’ decay in Gaul, a
Greek people, the Rhodians, had pushed their commercial enterprises to a
great distance, and, in the words of the ancient historians, held the
empire of the sea. Their ancestors had, in former times, succeeded the
Phoenicians in the island of Rhodes, and they likewise succeeded them in
the south of Gaul, and founded, at the mouth of the Rhone, a colony called
Rhodanusia or Rhoda, with the same name as that which they had already
founded on the north-east coast of Spain, and which is nowadays the town
of Rosas, in Catalonia. But the importance of the Rhodians on the southern
coast of Gaul was short-lived. It had already sunk very low in the year
600 B.C., when Euxenes, a Greek trader, coming from Phocea, an Ionian town
of Asia Minor, to seek his fortune, landed from a bay eastward of the
Rhone. The Segobrigians, a tribe of the Gallic race, were in occupation of
the neighboring country. Nann, their chief, gave the strangers kindly
welcome, and took them home with him to a great feast which he was giving
for his daughter’s marriage, who was called Gyptis, according to some, and
Petta, according to other historians. A custom which exists still in
several cantons of the Basque country, and even at the centre of France in
Morvan, a mountainous district of the department of the Nievre, would that
the maiden should appear only at the end of the banquet, and holding in
her hand a filled wine-cup, and that the guest to whom she should present
it should become the husband of her choice. By accident, or quite another
cause, say the ancient legends, Gyptis stopped opposite Euxenes, and
handed him the cup. Great was the surprise, and, probably, anger amongst
the Gauls who were present. But Nann, believing he recognized a
commandment from his gods, accepted the Phocean as his son-in-law, and
gave him as dowry the bay where he had landed, with some cantons of the
territory around. Euxenes, in gratitude, gave his wife the Greek name of
Aristoxena (that is, “the best of hostesses”), sent away his ship to
Phocea for colonists, and, whilst waiting for them, laid in the centre of
the bay, on a peninsula hollowed out harbor-wise, towards the south, the
foundations of a town, which he called Massilia—thence Marseilles.
Scarcely a year had elapsed when Euxenes’ ship arrived from Phocea, and
with it several galleys, bringing colonists full of hope, and laden with
provisions, utensils, arms, seeds, vine-cuttings, and olive-cuttings, and,
moreover, a statue of Diana, which the colonists had gone to fetch from
the celebrated temple of that goddess at Ephesus, and which her priestess,
Aristarche, accompanied to its new country.
The activity and prosperity of Marseilles, both within and without, were
rapidly developed. She carried her commerce wherever the Phoenicians and
the Rhodians had marked out a road; she repaired their forts; she took to
herself their establishments; and she placed on her medals, to signify
dominion, the rose, the emblem of Rhodes, beside the lion of Marseilles.
But Nann, the Gallic chieftain, who had protected her infancy, died; and
his son, Conran, shared the jealousy felt by the Segobrigians and the
neighboring peoplets towards the new corners. He promised and really
resolved to destroy the new city. It was the time of the flowering of the
vine, a season of great festivity amongst the Ionian Greeks, and
Marseilles thought solely of the preparations for the feast. The houses
and public places were being decorated with branches and flowers. No guard
was set; no work was done. Conran sent into the town a number of his men,
some openly, as if to take part in the festivities, others hidden at the
bottom of the cars which conveyed into Marseilles the branches and foliage
from the outskirts. He himself went and lay in ambush in a neighboring
glen, with seven thousand men, they say, but the number is probably
exaggerated, and waited for his emissaries to open the gates to him during
the night. But once more a woman, a near relation of the Gallic chieftain,
was the guardian angel of the Greeks, and revealed the plot to a young man
of Marseilles, with whom she was in love. The gates were immediately shut,
and so many Segobrigians as happened to be in the town were massacred.
Then, when night came on, the inhabitants, armed, went forth to surprise
Conran in the ambush where he was awaiting the moment to surprise them.
And there he fell with all his men.
Delivered as they were from this danger, the Massilians nevertheless
remained in a difficult and disquieting situation. The peoplets around, in
coalition against them, attacked them often, and threatened them
incessantly. But whilst they were struggling against these embarrassments,
a grand disaster, happening in the very same spot whence they had
emigrated half a century before, was procuring them a great accession of
strength and the surest means of defence. In the year 542 B.C., Phocea
succumbed beneath the efforts of Cyrus, King of Persia, and her
inhabitants, leaving to the conqueror empty streets and deserted houses,
took to their ships in a body, to transfer their homes elsewhere. A
portion of this floating population made straight for Marseilles; others
stopped at Corsica, in the harbor of Alalia, another Phocean colony. But
at the end of five years they too, tired of piratical life and of the
incessant wars they had to sustain against the Carthaginians, quitted
Corsica, and went to rejoin their compatriots in Gaul.
Thenceforward Marseilles found herself in a position to face her enemies.
She extended her walls all round the bay, and her enterprises far away.
She founded on the southern coast of Gaul and on the eastern coast of
Spain, permanent settlements, which are to this day towns: eastward of the
Rhone, Hercules’ harbor, Moncecus (Monaco), Niccea (Nice), Antipolis
(Antibes); westward, Heraclea Cacabaria (Saint-Gilles), Agaththae
(Agdevall), Emporia; (Ampurias in Catalonia), &c., &c. In valley
of the Rhone, several towns of the Gauls, Cabellio were (Cavaili like on),
Greek Avenio (Avignon), Arelate (Arles), for instance, colonies, so great
there was the number of travellers or established merchants who spoke
Greek. With this commercial activity Marseilles united intellectual and
scientific activity; her grammarians were among the first to revise and
annotate the poems of Homer; and bold travellers from Marseilles,
Euthymenes and Pytheas by name, cruised, one along the western coast of
Africa beyond the Straits of Gibraltar, and the other the southern and
western coasts of Europe, from the mouth of the Tanais (Don), in the Black
Sea, to the latitudes and perhaps into the interior of the Baltic. They
lived, both of them, in the second half of the fourth century B.C., and
they wrote each a Periplus, or tales of their travels, which have
unfortunately been almost entirely lost.
But whatever may have been her intelligence and activity, a single town
situated at the extremity of Gaul and peopled with foreigners could have
but little influence over so vast a country and its inhabitants. At first
civilization is very hard and very slow; it requires many centuries, many
great events, and many years of toil to overcome the early habits of a
people, and cause them to exchange the pleasures, gross indeed, but
accompanied with the idleness and freedom of barbarian life, for the
toilful advantages of a regulated social condition. By dint of foresight,
perseverance, and courage, the merchants of Marseilles and her colonies
crossed by two or three main lines the forests, morasses, and heaths
through the savage tribes of Gauls, and there effected their exchanges,
but to the right and left they penetrated but a short distance. Even on
their main lines their traces soon disappeared; and at the commercial
settlements which they established here and there they were often far more
occupied in self-defence than in spreading their example. Beyond a strip
of land of uneven breadth, along the Mediterranean, and save the space
peopled towards the south-west by the Iberians, the country, which
received its name from the former of the two, was occupied by the Gauls
and the Kymrians; by the Gauls in the centre, south-east and east, in the
highlands of modern France, between the Alps, the Vosges, the mountains of
Auvergne and the Cevennes; by the Kymrians in the north, north-west, and
west, in the lowlands, from the western boundary of the Gauls to the
ocean.
Whether the Gauls and the Kymrians were originally of the same race, or at
least of races closely connected; whether they were both anciently
comprised under the general name of Celts; and whether the Kymrians, if
they were not of the same race as the Gauls, belonged to that of the
Germans, the final conquerors of the Roman empire, are questions which the
learned have been a long, long while discussing without deciding. The only
facts which seem to be clear and certain are the following.
The ancients for a long while applied without distinction the name of
Celts to the peoples who lived in the west and north of Europe, regardless
of precise limits, language, or origin. It was a geographical title
applicable to a vast but ill-explored territory, rather than a real
historical name of race or nation. And so, in the earliest times, Gauls,
Germans, Bretons, and even Iberians, appear frequently confounded under
the name of Celts, peoples of Celtica.
Little by little this name is observed to become more restricted and more
precise. The Iberians of Spain are the first to be detached; then the
Germans. In the century preceding the Christian era, the Gauls, that is,
the peoples inhabiting Gaul, are alone called Celts. We begin even to
recognize amongst them diversities of race, and to distinguish the
Iberians of Gaul, alias Aquitanians, and the Kymrians or Belgians from the
Gauls, to whom the name of Celts is confined. Sometimes even it is to a
confederation of certain Gallic tribes that the name Specially applies.
However it be, the Gauls appear to have been the first inhabitants of
western Europe. In the most ancient historical memorials they are found
there, and not only in Gaul, but in Great Britain, in Ireland, and in the
neighboring islets. In Gaul, after a long predominance, they commingled
with other races to form the French nation. But, in this commingling
numerous traces of their language, monuments, manners, and names of
persons and places, survived and still exist, especially to the east and
south—cast, in local customs and vernacular dialects. In Ireland, in
the highlands of Scotland, in the Hebrides and the Isle of Man, Gauls
(Gaels) still live under their primitive name. There we still have the
Gaelic race and tongue, free, if not from any change, at least from
absorbent fusion.
From the seventh to the fourth century B.C., a new population spread over
Gaul, not at once, but by a series of invasions, of which the two
principal took place at the two extremes of that epoch. They called
themselves Kymrians or Kimrians, whence the Romans made Cimbrians, which
recalls Cimmerii or Cimmerians, the name of a people whom the Greeks
placed on the western bank of the Black Sea and in the Cimmerian
peninsula, called to this day Crimea. During these irregular and
successively repeated movements of wandering populations, it often
happened that tribes of different races met, made terms, united, and
finished by amalgamation under one name. All the peoples that successively
invaded Europe, Gauls, Kymrians, Germans, belonged at first, in Asia,
whence they came, to a common stern; the diversity of their languages,
traditions, and manners, great as it already was at the time of their
appearance in the West, was the work of time and of the diverse
circumstances in the midst of which they had lived; but there always
remained amongst them traces of a primitive affinity which allowed of
sudden and frequent comings, amidst their tumultuous dispersion.
The Kymrians, who crossed the Rhine and flung themselves into northern
Gaul towards the middle of the fourth century B.C., called themselves
Bolg, or Belg, or Belgians, a name which indeed is given to them by Roman
writers, and which has remained that of the country they first invaded.
They descended southwards, to the banks of the Seine and the Marne. There
they encountered the Kymrians of former invasions, who not only had spread
over the country comprised between the Seine and the Loire, to the very
heart of the peninsula bordered by the latter river, but had crossed the
sea, and occupied a portion of the large island opposite Gaul, crowding
back the Gauls, who had preceded them, upon Ireland and the highlands of
Scotland. It was from one of these tribes and its chieftain, called Pryd
or Prydain, Brit or Britain, that Great Britain and Brittany in France
received the name which they have kept.
Each of these races, far from forming a single people bound to the same
destiny and under the same chieftains, split into peoplets, more or less
independent, who foregathered or separated according to the shifts of
circumstances, and who pursued, each on their own account and at their own
pleasure, their fortunes or their fancies. The Ibero-Aquitanians numbered
twenty tribes; the Gauls twenty-two nations; the original Kymrians,
mingled with the Gauls between the Loire and the Garonne, seventeen; and
the Kymro-Belgians twenty-three. These sixty-two nations were subdivided
into several hundreds of tribes; and these petty agglomerations were
distributed amongst rival confederations or leagues, which disputed one
with another the supremacy over such and such a portion of territory.
Three grand leagues existed amongst the Gauls; that of the Arvernians,
formed of peoplets established in the country which received from them the
name of Auvergne; that of the AEduans, in Burgundy, whose centre was
Bibracte (Autun); and that of the Sequanians, in Franche-Comte, whose
centre was Vesontio (Besancon). Amongst the Kymrians of the West, the
Armoric league bound together the tribes of Brittany and lower Normandy.
From these alliances, intended to group together scattered forces, sprang
fresh passions or interests, which became so many fresh causes of discord
and hostility. And, in these divers-agglomerations, government was
everywhere almost equally irregular and powerless to maintain order or
found an enduring state. Kymrians, Gauls, or Iberians were nearly equally
ignorant, improvident, slaves to the shiftings of their ideas and the sway
of their passions, fond of war and idleness and rapine and feasting, of
gross and savage pleasures. All gloried in hanging from the breast-gear of
their horses, or nailing to the doors of their houses, the heads of their
enemies. All sacrificed human victims to their gods; all tied their
prisoners to trees, and burned or flogged them to death; all took pleasure
in wearing upon their heads or round their arms, and depicting upon their
naked bodies, fantastic ornaments, which gave them a wild appearance. An
unbridled passion for wine and strong liquors was general amongst them:
the traders of Italy, and especially of Marseilles, brought supplies into
every part of Gaul; from interval to interval there were magazines
established, whither the Gauls flocked to sell for a flask of wine their
furs, their grain, their cattle, their slaves. “It was easy,” says an
ancient historian, “to get the Ganymede for the liquor.” Such are the
essential characteristics of barbaric life, as they have been and as they
still are at several points of our globe, amongst people of the same grade
in the scale of civilization. They existed in nearly an equal degree
amongst the different races of ancient Gaul, whose resemblance was
rendered much stronger thereby than their diversity in other respects by
some of their customs, traditions, or ideas.
In their case, too, there is no sign of those permanent demarcations,
those rooted antipathies, and that impossibility of unity which are
observable amongst peoples whose original moral condition is really very
different. In Asia, Africa, and America, the English, the Dutch, the
Spanish, and the French have been and are still in frequent contact with
the natives of the country—Hindoos, Malays, Negroes, and Indians;
and, in spite of this contact, the races have remained widely separated
one from another. In ancient Gaul not only did Gauls, Kymrians, and
Iberians live frequently in alliance and almost intimacy, but they
actually commingled and cohabited without scruple on the same territory.
And so we find in the midst of the Iberians, towards the mouth of the
Garonne, a Gallic tribe, the Viviscan Biturigians, come from the
neighborhood of Bourges, where the bulk of the nation was settled: they
had been driven thither by one of the first invasions of the Kymrians, and
peaceably taken root there; Burdigaia, afterwards Bordeaux, was the chief
settlement of this tribe, and even then a trading-place between the
Mediterranean and the ocean. A little farther on, towards the south, a
Kymrian tribe, the Bolans, lived isolated from its race, in the
waste-lands of the Iberians, extracting the resin from the pines which
grew in that territory. To the south-west, in the country situated between
the Garonne, the eastern Pyrenees, the Cevennes, and the Rhone, two great
tribes of Kymro-Belgians, the Bolg, Volg, Volk, or Voles, Arecomican and
Tectosagian, came to settle, towards the end of the fourth century B. C.,
in the midst of the Iberian and Gallic peoplets; and there is nothing to
show that the new comers lived worse with their neighbors than the latter
had previously lived together.
It is evident that amongst all these peoplets, whatever may have been
their diversity of origin, there was sufficient similitude of social
condition and manners to make agreement a matter neither very difficult
nor very long to accomplish.
On the other hand, and as a natural consequence, it was precarious and
often of short duration: Iberian, Gallic, or Kymrian as they might be,
these peoplets underwent frequent displacements, forced or voluntary, to
escape from the attacks of a more powerful neighbor; to find new
pasturage; in consequence of internal dissension; or, perhaps, for the
mere pleasure of warfare and running risks, and to be delivered from the
tediousness of a monotonous life. From the earliest times to the first
century before the Christian era, Gaul appears a prey to this incessant
and disorderly movement of the population; they change settlement and
neighborhood; disappear from one point and reappear at another; cross one
another; avoid one another; absorb and are absorbed. And the movement was
not confined within Gaul; the Gauls of every race went, sometimes in very
numerous hordes, to seek far away plunder and a settlement. Spain, Italy,
Germany, Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa have been in turn the theatre of
those Gallic expeditions which entailed long wars, grand displacements of
peoples, and sometimes the formation of new nations. Let us make a slight
acquaintance with this outer history of the Gauls; for it is well worth
while to follow them a space upon their distant wanderings. We will then
return to the soil of France, and concern ourselves only with what has
passed within her boundaries.
CHAPTER II.
THE GAULS OUT OF GAUL.
About three centuries B.C. numerous hordes of Gauls crossed the Alps and
penetrated to the centre of Etruria, which is nowadays Tuscany. The
Etruscans, being then at war with Rome, proposed to take them, armed and
equipped as they had come, into their own pay. “If you want our hands,”
answered the Gauls, “against your enemies, the Romans, here they are at
your service—but on one condition: give us lands.”
A century afterwards other Gallic hordes, descending in like manner upon
Italy, had commenced building houses and tilling fields along the
Adriatic, on the territory where afterwards was Aquileia. The Roman Senate
decreed that their settlement should be opposed, and that they should be
summoned to give up their implements and even their arms. Not being in a
position to resist, the Gauls sent representatives to Rome. They, being
introduced into the Senate, said, “The multitude of people in Gaul, the
want of lands, and necessity forced us to cross the Alps to seek a home.
We saw plains uncultivated and uninhabited. We settled there without doing
any one harm. . . . We ask nothing but lands. We will live peacefully on
them under the laws of the republic.”
Again, a century later, or thereabouts, some Gallic Kymrians, mingled with
Teutons or Germans, said also to the Roman Senate, “Give us a little land
as pay, and do what you please with our hands and weapons.”
Want of room and means of subsistence have, in fact, been the principal
causes which have at all times thrust barbarous people, and especially the
Gauls, out of their fatherland. An immense extent of country is required
for indolent hordes who live chiefly upon the produce of the chase and of
their flocks; and when there is no longer enough of forest or pasturage
for the families that become too numerous, there is a swarm from the hive,
and a search for livelihood elsewhere. The Gauls emigrated in every
direction. To find, as they said, rivers and lands, they marched from
north to south, and from east to west. They crossed at one time the Rhine,
at another the Alps, at another the Pyrenees. More than fifteen centuries
B.C. they had already thrown themselves into Spain, after many fights, no
doubt, with the Iberians established between the Pyrenees and the Garonne.
They penetrated north-westwards to the northern point of the Peninsula,
into the province which received from them and still bears the name of
Galicia; south-eastwards to the southern point, between the river Anas
(nowadays Guadiana) and the ocean, where they founded a Little Celtica;
and centrewards and southwards from Castile to Andalusia, where the
amalgamation of two races brought about the creation of a new people, that
found a place in history as Celtiberians. And twelve centuries after those
events, about 220 B.C., we find the Gallic peoplet, which had planted
itself in the south of Portugal, energetically defending its independence
against the neighboring Carthaginian colonies. Indortius, their chief,
conquered and taken prisoner, was beaten with rods and hung upon the
cross, in the sight of his army, after having had his eyes put out by
command of Hamilcar-Barca, the Carthaginian general; but a Gallic slave
took care to avenge him by assassinating, some years after, at a
hunting-party, Hasdrubal, son-in-law of Hamilcar, who had succeeded to the
command. The slave was put to the torture; but, indomitable in his hatred,
he died insulting the Africans.
A little after the Gallic invasion of Spain, and by reason perhaps of that
very movement, in the first half of the fourteenth century B.C., another
vast horde of Gauls, who called themselves Anahra, Ambra, Ambrons, that
is, “braves,” crossed the Alps, occupied northern Italy, descended even to
the brink of the Tiber, and conferred the name of Ambria or Umbria on the
country where they founded their dominion. If ancient accounts might be
trusted, this dominion was glorious and flourishing, for Umbria numbered,
they say, three hundred and fifty-eight towns; but falsehood, according to
the Eastern proverb, lurks by the cradle of nations. At a much later
epoch, in the second century B.C., fifteen towns of Liguria contained
altogether, as we learn from Livy, but twenty thousand souls. It is plain,
then, what must really have been— even admitting their existence—the
three hundred and fifty-eight towns of Umbria. However, at the end of two
or three centuries, this Gallic colony succumbed beneath the superior
power of the Etruscans, another set of invaders from eastern Europe,
perhaps from the north of Greece, who founded in Italy a mighty empire.
The Umbrians or Ambrons were driven out or subjugated. Nevertheless some
of their peoplets, preserving their name and manners, remained in the
mountains of upper Italy, where they were to be subsequently discovered by
fresh and more celebrated Gallic invasions.
Those just spoken of are of such antiquity and obscurity, that we note
their place in history without being able to say how they came to fill it.
It is only with the sixth century before our era that we light upon the
really historical expeditions of the Gauls away from Gaul, those, in fact,
of which we may follow the course and estimate the effects.
Towards the year 587 B.C., almost at the very moment when the Phoceans had
just founded Marseilles, two great Gallic hordes got in motion at the same
time, and crossed, one the Rhine, the other the Alps, making one for
Germany, the other for Italy. The former followed the course of the Danube
and settled in Illyria, on the right bank of the river. It is too much,
perhaps, to say that they settled; the greater part of them continued
wandering and fighting, sometimes amalgamating with the peoplets they
encountered, sometimes chasing them and exterminating them, whilst
themselves were incessantly pushed forward by fresh bands coming also from
Gaul. Thus marching and spreading, leaving here and there on their route,
along the rivers and in the valleys of the Alps, tribes that remained and
founded peoples, the Gauls had arrived, towards the year 340 B.C., at the
confines of Macedonia, at the time when Alexander, the son of Philip, who
was already famous, was advancing to the same point to restrain the
ravages of the neighboring tribes, perhaps of the Gauls themselves. From
curiosity, or a desire to make terms with Alexander, certain Gauls betook
themselves to his camp. He treated them well, made them sit at his table,
took pleasure in exhibiting his magnificence before them, and in the midst
of his carouse made his interpreter ask them what they were most afraid
of.
“We fear nought,” they answered, “unless it be the fall of heaven; but we
set above everything the friendship of a man like thee.” “The Celts are
proud,” said Alexander to his Macedonians; and he promised them his
friendship. On the death of Alexander, the Gauls, as mercenaries, entered,
in Europe and Asia, the service of the kings who had been his generals.
Ever greedy, fierce, and passionate, they were almost equally dangerous as
auxiliaries and as neighbors. Antigonus, King of Macedonia, was to pay the
band he had enrolled a gold piece a head. They brought their wives and
children with them, and at the end of the campaign they claimed pay for
their following as well as for themselves: “We were promised,” said they,
“a gold piece a head for each Gaul; and these are also Gauls.”
Before long they tired of fighting the battles of another; their power
accumulated; fresh hordes, in great numbers, arrived amongst them about
the year 281 B.C. They had before them Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly,
Greece, rich, but distracted and weakened by civil strife. They effected
an entrance at several points, devastating, plundering, loading their cars
with booty, and dividing their prisoners into two parts; one offered in
sacrifice to their gods, the other strung up to trees and abandoned to the
gais and matars, or javelins and pikes of the conquerors.
Like all barbarians, they, both for pleasure and on principle, added
insolence to ferocity. Their Brenn, or most famous chieftain, whom the
Latins and Greeks call Brennus, dragged in his train Macedonian prisoners,
short, mean, and with shaven heads, and exhibiting them beside Gallic
warriors, tall, robust, long-haired, adorned with chains of gold, said,
“This is what we are, that is what our enemies are.”
Ptolemy the Thunderbolt, King of Macedonia, received with haughtiness
their first message requiring of him a ransom for his dominions if he
wished to preserve peace. “Tell those who sent you,” he replied to the
Gallic deputation, “to lay down their arms and give up to me their
chieftains. I will then see what peace I can grant them.” On the return of
the deputation, the Gauls were moved to laughter. “He shall soon see,”
said they, “whether it was in his interest or our own that we offered him
peace.” And, indeed, in the first engagement, neither the famous
Macedonian phalanx, nor the elephant he rode, could save King Ptolemy; the
phalanx was broken, the elephant riddled with javelins, the king himself
taken, killed, and his head marched about the field of battle on the top
of a pike.
Macedonia was in consternation; there was a general flight from the open
country, and the gates of the towns were closed. “The people,” says an
historian, “cursed the folly of King Ptolemy, and invoked the names of
Philip and Alexander, the guardian deities of their land.”
Three years later, another and a more formidable invasion came bursting
upon Thessaly and Greece. It was, according to the unquestionably
exaggerated account of the ancient historians, two hundred thousand
strong, and commanded by that famous, ferocious, and insolent Brennus
mentioned before. His idea was to strike a blow which should
simultaneously enrich the Gauls and stun the Greeks. He meant to plunder
the temple at Delphi, the most venerated place in all Greece, whither
flowed from century to century all kinds of offerings, and where, no
doubt, enormous treasure was deposited. Such was, in the opinion of the
day, the sanctity of the place, that, on the rumor of the projected
profanation, several Greeks essayed to divert the Gallic Brenn himself, by
appealing to his superstitious fears; but his answer was, “The gods have
no need of wealth; it is they who distribute it to men.”
All Greece was moved. The nations of the Peloponnese closed the isthmus of
Corinth by a wall. Outside the isthmus, the Beeotians, Phocidians,
Locrians, Megarians, and AEtolians formed a coalition under the leadership
of the Athenians; and, as their ancestors had done scarcely two hundred
years before against Xerxes and the Persians, they advanced in all haste
to the pass of Thermopylae, to stop there the new barbarians.
And for several days they did stop them; and instead of three hundred
heroes, as of yore in the case of Leonidas and his Spartans, only forty
Greeks, they say, fell in the first engagement. ‘Amongst them was a young
Athenian, Cydias by name, whose shield was hung in the temple of Zeus the
savior, at Athens, with this inscription:—
THIS SHIELD, DEDICATED TO ZEUS, IS THAT OF A VALIANT MAN,
CYDIAS. IT STILL BEWAILS ITS
YOUNG MASTER. FOR THE FIRST TIME
HE BARE IT ON HIS LEFT ARM
WHEN TERRIBLE ARES CRUSHED
THE GAULS.
But soon, just as in the case of the Persians, traitors guided Brennus and
his Gauls across the mountain-paths; the position of Thermopylae was
turned; the Greek army owed its safety to the Athenian galleys; and by
evening of the same day the barbarians appeared in sight of Delphi.
Brennus would have led them at once to the assault. He showed them, to
excite them, the statues, vases, cars, monuments of every kind, laden with
gold, which adorned the approaches of the town and of the temple: “‘Tis
pure gold—massive gold,” was the news he had spread in every
direction. But the very cupidity he provoked was against his plan; for the
Gauls fell out to plunder. He had to put off the assault until the morrow.
The night was passed in irregularities and orgies.
The Greeks, on the contrary, prepared with ardor for the fight. Their
enthusiasm was intense. Those barbarians, with their half-nakedness, their
grossness, their ferocity, their ignorance, and their impiety, were
revolting. They committed murder and devastation like dolts. They left
their dead on the field, without burial. They engaged in battle without
consulting priest or augur. It was not only their goods, but their
families, their life, the honor of their country, and the sanctuary of
their religion, that the Greeks were defending, and they might rely on the
protection of the gods. The oracle of Apollo had answered, “I and the
white virgins will provide for this matter.” The people surrounded the
temple, and the priests supported and encouraged the people. During the
night small bodies of AEtolians, Amphisseans, and Phocidians arrived one
after another. Four thousand men had joined within Delphi, when the Gallic
bands, in the morning, began to mount the narrow and rough incline which
led up to the town. The Greeks rained down from above a deluge of stones
and other missiles. The Gauls recoiled, but recovered themselves. The
besieged fell back on the nearest streets of the town, leaving open the
approach to the temple, upon which the barbarians threw themselves. The
pillage of the shrines had just commenced when the sky looked threatening;
a storm burst forth, the thunder echoed, the rain fell, the hail rattled.
Readily taking advantage of this incident, the priests and the augurs
sallied from the temple clothed in their sacred garments, with hair
dishevelled and sparkling eyes, proclaiming the advent of the god: “‘Tis
he! we saw him shoot athwart the temple’s vault, which opened under his
feet; and with him were two virgins, who issued from the temples of
Artemis and Athena. We saw them with our eyes. We heard the twang of their
bows, and the clash of their armor.” Hearing these cries and the roar of
the tempest, the Greeks dash on—the Gauls are panic-stricken, and
rush headlong down the bill. The Greeks push on in pursuit. Rumors of
fresh apparitions are spread; three heroes, Hyperochus, Laodocus, and
Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, have issued from their tombs hard by the temple,
and are thrusting at the Gauls with their lances. The rout was speedy and
general; the barbarians rushed to the cover of their camp; but the camp
was attacked next morning by the Greeks from the town and by
re-enforcements from the country places. Brennus and the picked warriors
about him made a gallant resistance, but defeat was a foregone conclusion.
Brennus was wounded, and his comrades bore him off the field. The
barbarian army passed the whole day in flight. During the ensuing night a
new access of terror seized them they again took to flight, and four days
after the passage of Thermopylae some scattered bands, forming scarcely a
third of those who had marched on Delphi, rejoined the division which had
remained behind, some leagues from the town, in the plains watered by the
Cephissus. Brennus summoned his comrades “Kill all the wounded and me,”
said he; “burn your cars; make Cichor king; and away at full speed.” Then
he called for wine, drank himself drunk, and stabbed himself. Cichor did
cut the throats of the wounded, and traversed, flying and fighting,
Thessaly and Macedonia; and on returning whence they had set out, the
Gauls dispersed, some to settle at the foot of a neighboring mountain
under the command of a chieftain named Bathanat or Baedhannatt, i.e., son
of the wild boar; others to march back towards their own country; the
greatest part to resume the same life of incursion and adventure. But they
changed the scene of operations. Greece, Macedonia, and Thrace were
exhausted by pillage, and made a league to resist. About 278 B.C. the
Gauls crossed the Hellespont and passed into Asia Minor. There, at one
time in the pay of the kings of Bithynia, Pergamos, Cappadocia, and Syria,
or of the free commercial cities which were struggling against the kings,
at another carrying on wars on their own account, they wandered for more
than thirty years, divided into three great hordes, which parcelled out
the territories among themselves, overran and plundered them during the
fine weather, intrenched themselves during winter in their camp of cars,
or in some fortified place, sold their services to the highest bidder,
changed masters according to interest or inclination, and by their bravery
became the terror of these effeminate populations and the arbiters of
these petty states.
At last both princes and people grew weary. Antiochus, King of Syria,
attacked one of the three bands,—that of the Tectosagians,—conquered
it, and cantoned it in a district of Upper Phrygia. Later still, about 241
B.C., Eumenes, sovereign of Pergamos, and Attalus, his successor, drove
and shut up the other two bands, the Tolistoboians and Troemians, likewise
in the same region. The victories of Attalus over the Gauls excited
veritable enthusiasm. He was celebrated as a special envoy from Zeus. He
took the title of King, which his predecessors had not hitherto borne. He
had his battles showily painted; and that he might triumph at the same
time both in Europe and Asia, he sent one of the pictures to Athens, where
it was still to be seen three centuries afterwards, hanging upon the wall
of the citadel. Forced to remain stationary, the Gallic hordes became a
people,—the Galatians,—and the country they occupied was
called Galatia. They lived there some fifty years, aloof from the
indigenous population of Greeks and Phrygians, whom they kept in an almost
servile condition, preserving their warlike and barbarous habits, resuming
sometimes their mercenary service, and becoming once more the bulwark or
the terror of neighboring states. But at the beginning of the second
century before our era, the Romans had entered Asia, in pursuit of their
great enemy, Hannibal. They had just beaten, near Magnesia, Antiochus,
King of Syria. In his army they had encountered men of lofty stature, with
hair light or dyed red, half naked, marching to the fight with loud cries,
and terrible at the first onset. They recognized the Gauls, and resolved
to destroy or subdue them. The consul, Cn. Manlius, had the duty and the
honor. Attacked in their strongholds on Mount Olympus and Mount Magaba,
189 B.C., the three Gallic bands, after a short but stout resistance, were
conquered and subjugated; and thenceforth losing all national importance,
they amalgamated little by little with the Asiatic populations around
them. From time to time they are still seen to reappear with their
primitive manners and passions. Rome humored them; Mithridates had them
for allies in his long struggle with the Romans. He kept by him a Galatian
guard; and when he sought death, and poison failed him, it was the captain
of the guard, a Gaul named Bituitus, whom he asked to run him through.
That is the last historical event with which the Gallic name is found
associated in Asia.
Nevertheless the amalgamation of the Gauls of Galatia with the natives
always remained very imperfect; for towards the end of the fourth century
of the Christian era they did not speak Greek, as the latter did, but
their national tongue, that of the Kymro-Belgians; and St. Jerome
testifies that it differed very little from that which was spoken in
Belgica itself, in the region of Troves.
The Romans had good ground for keeping a watchful eye, from the time they
met them, upon the Gauls, and for dreading them particularly. At the time
when they determined to pursue them into the mountains of Asia Minor, they
were just at the close of a desperate struggle, maintained against them
for four hundred years, in Italy itself; “a struggle,” says Sallust, “in
which it was a question not of glory, but of existence, for Rome.” It was
but just now remarked that at the beginning of the sixth century before
our era, whilst, under their chieftain Sigovesus, the Gallic bands whose
history has occupied the last few pages were crossing the Rhine and
entering Germany, other bands, under the command of Bellovesus, were
traversing the Alps and swarming into Italy. From 587 to 521 B.C. five
Gallic expeditions, formed of Gallic, Kymric, and Ligurian tribes,
followed the same route and invaded successively the two banks of the Po—the
bottomless river, as they called it. The Etruscans, who had long before,
it will be remembered, themselves wrested that country from a people of
Gallic origin, the Umbrians or Ambrons, could not make head against the
new conquerors, aided, may be, by the remains of the old population. The
well-built towns, the cultivation of the country, the ports and canals
that had been dug, nearly all these labors of Etruscan civilization
disappeared beneath the footsteps of these barbarous hordes that knew only
how to destroy, and one of which gave its chieftain the name of Hurricane
(Elitorius, Ele-Dov). Scarcely five Etruscan towns, Mantua and Ravenna
amongst others, escaped disaster. The Gauls also founded towns, such as
Mediolanum (Milan), Brixia (Brescia), Verona, Bononia (Bologna),
Sena-Gallica (Sinigaglia), &c. But for a long while they were no more
than intrenched camps, fortified places, where the population shut
themselves up in case of necessity. “They, as a general rule, straggled
about the country,” says Polybius, the most correct and clear-sighted of
the ancient historians, “sleeping on grass or straw, living on nothing but
meat, busying themselves about nothing but war and a little husbandry, and
counting as riches nothing but flocks and gold, the only goods that can be
carried away at pleasure and on every occasion.”
During nearly thirty years the Gauls thus scoured not only Upper Italy,
which they had almost to themselves, but all the eastern coast, and up to
the head of the peninsula, encountering along the Adriatic, and in the
rich and effeminate cities of Magna Graecia, Sybaris, Tarentum, Crotona,
and Locri, no enemy capable of resisting them. But in the year 391 B.C.,
finding themselves cooped up in their territory, a strong band of Gauls
crossed the Apennines, and went to demand from the Etruscans of Clusium
the cession of a portion of their lands. The only answer Clusium made was
to close her gates. The Gauls formed up around the walls. Clusium asked
help from Rome, with whom, notwithstanding the rivalry between the
Etruscan and Roman nations, she had lately been on good terms. The Romans
promised first their good offices with the Gauls, afterwards material
support; and thus were brought face to face those two peoples, fated to
continue for four centuries a struggle which was to be ended only by the
complete subjection of Gaul.
The details of that struggle belong specially to Roman history; they have
been transmitted to us only by Roman historians; and the Romans it was who
were left ultimately in possession of the battle-field, that is, of Italy.
It will suffice here to make known the general march of events and the
most characteristic incidents.
Four distinct periods may be recognized in this history; and each marks a
different phase in the course of events, and, so to speak, an act of the
drama. During the first period, which lasted forty-two years, from 391 to
349 B.C., the Gauls carried on a war of aggression and conquest against
Rome. Not that such had been their original design; on the contrary, they
replied, when the Romans offered intervention between them and Clusium,
“We ask only for lands, of which we are in need; and Clusium has more than
she can cultivate. Of the Romans we know very little; but we believe them
to be a brave people, since the Etruscans put themselves under their
protection. Remain spectators of our quarrel; we will settle it before
your eyes, that you may report at home how far above other men the Gauls
are in valor.”
But when they saw their pretensions repudiated and themselves treated with
outrageous disdain, the Gauls left the siege of Clusium on the spot, and
set out for Rome, not stopping for plunder, and proclaiming everywhere on
their march, “We are bound for Rome; we make war on none but Romans;” and
when they encountered the Roman army, on the 16th of duly, 390 B.C., at
the confluence of the Allia and the Tiber, half a day’s march from Rome,
they abruptly struck up their war-chant, and threw themselves upon their
enemies. It is well known how they gained the day; how they entered Rome,
and found none but a few gray-beards, who, being unable or unwilling to
leave their abode, had remained seated in the vestibule on their chairs of
ivory, with truncheons of ivory in their hands, and decorated with the
insignia of the public offices they had filled. All the people of Rome had
fled, and were wandering over the country, or seeking a refuge amongst
neighboring peoples. Only the senate and a thousand warriors had shut
themselves up in the Capitol, a citadel which commanded the city. The
Gauls kept them besieged there for seven months. The circumstances of this
celebrated siege are well known, though they have been a little
embellished by the Roman historians. Not that they have spoken too highly
of the Romans themselves, who, in the day of their country’s disaster,
showed admirable courage, perseverance, and hopefulness. Pontius Cominius,
who traversed the Gallic camp, swam the Tiber, and scaled by night the
heights of the Capitol, to go and carry news to the senate; M. Manlius,
who was the first, and for some moments the only one, to hold in check,
from the citadel’s walls, the Gauls on the point of effecting an entrance;
and M. Furius Camillus, who had been banished from Rome the preceding
year, and had taken refuge in the town of Ardea, and who instantly took
the field for his country, rallied the Roman fugitives, and incessantly
harassed the Gauls—are true heroes, who have earned their weed of
glory. Let no man seek to lower them in public esteem. Noble actions are
so beautiful, and the actors often receive so little recompense, that we
are at least bound to hold sacred the honor attached to their name.
The Roman historians have done no more than justice in extolling the
saviors of Rome. But their memory would have suffered no loss had the
whole truth been made known; and the claims of national vanity are not of
the same weight as the duty one owes to truth. Now, it is certain that
Camillus did not gain such decisive advantages over the Gauls as the Roman
accounts would lead one to believe, and that the deliverance of Rome was
much less complete. On the 13th of February, 389 B.C., the Gauls, it is
true, allowed their retreat to be purchased by the Romans; and they
experienced, as they retired, certain checks, whereby they lost a part of
their booty. But twenty-three years afterwards they are found in Latium
scouring in every direction the outlying country of Rome, without the
Romans daring to go out and fight them. It was only at the end of five
years, in the year 361 B.C., that, the very city being menaced anew, the
legions marched out to meet the enemy. “Surprised at this audacity,” says
Polybius, “the Gauls fell back, but merely a few leagues from Rome, to the
environs of Tibur; and thence, for the space of twelve years, they
attacked the Roman territory, renewing the campaign every year, often
reaching the very gates of the city, and being repulsed indeed, but never
farther than Tibur and its slopes.” Rome, however, made great efforts,
every war with the Gauls was previously proclaimed a tumult, which
involved a levy in mass of the citizens, without any exemption, even for
old men and priests. A treasure, specially dedicated to Gallic wars, was
laid by in the Capitol, and religious denunciations of the most awful kind
hung over the head of whoever should dare to touch it, no matter what the
exigency might be. To this epoch belonged those marvels of daring recorded
in Roman tradition, those acts of heroism tinged with fable, which are met
with amongst so many peoples, either in their earliest age, or in their
days of great peril. In the year 361 B.C., Titus Manlius, son of him who
had saved the Capitol from the night attack of the Gauls, and twelve years
later M. Valerius, a young military tribune, were, it will be remembered,
the two Roman heroes who vanquished in single combat the two Gallic giants
who insolently defied Rome. The gratitude towards them was general and of
long duration, for two centuries afterwards (in the year 167 B.C.) the
head of the Gaul with his tongue out still appeared at Rome, above the
shop of a money-changer, on a circular sign-board, called “the Kymrian
shield” (scutum Cimbricum). After seventeen years’ stay in Latium, the
Gauls at last withdrew, and returned to their adopted country in those
lovely valleys of the Po which already bore the name of Cisalpine Gaul.
They began to get disgusted with a wandering life. Their population
multiplied; their towns spread; their fields were better cultivated; their
manners became less barbarous. For fifty years there was scarcely any
trace of hostility or even contact between them and the Romans. But at the
beginning of the third century before our era, the coalition of the
Samnites and Etruscans against Rome was near its climax; they eagerly
pressed the Gauls to join, and the latter assented easily. Then commenced
the second period of struggles between the two peoples. Rome had taken
breath, and had grown much more rapidly than her rivals. Instead of
shutting herself up, as heretofore, within her walls, she forthwith raised
three armies, took the offensive against the coalitionists, and carried
the war into their territory. The Etruscans rushed to the defence of their
hearths. The two consuls, Fabius and Decius, immediately attacked the
Samnites and Gauls at the foot of the Apennines, close to Sentinum (now
Sentina). The battle was just beginning, when a hind, pursued by a wolf
from the mountains, passed in flight between the two armies, and threw
herself upon the side of the Gauls, who slew her; the wolf turned towards
the Romans, who let him go. “Comrades,” cried a soldier, “flight and death
are on the side where you see stretched on the ground the hind of Diana;
the wolf belongs to Mars; he is unwounded, and reminds us of our father
and founder; we shall conquer even as he.” Nevertheless the battle went
badly for the Romans; several legions were in flight, and Decius strove
vainly to rally them. The memory of his father came across his mind. There
was a belief amongst the Romans that if in the midst of an unsuccessful
engagement the general devoted himself to the infernal gods, “panic and
flight” passed forthwith to the enemies’ ranks. “Why daily?” said Decius
to the grand pontiff, whom he had ordered to follow him and keep at his
side in the flight; “‘tis given to our race to die to avert public
disasters.” He halted, placed a javelin beneath his feet, and covering his
head with a fold of his robe, and supporting his chin on his right hand,
repeated after the pontiff this sacred form of words:—
“Janus, Jupiter, our father Mars, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, . . . ye gods
in whose power are we, we and our enemies, gods Manes, ye I adore; ye I
pray, ye I adjure to give strength and victory to the Roman people, the
children of Quirinus, and to send confusion, panic, and death amongst the
enemies of the Roman people, the children of Quirinus. And, in these words
for the republic of the children of Quirinus, for the army, for the
legions, and for the allies of the Roman people, I devote to the gods
Manes and to the grave the legions and the allies of the enemy and
myself.”
Then remounting, Decius charged into the middle of the Gauls, where he
soon fell pierced with wounds; but the Romans recovered courage and gained
the day; for heroism and piety have power over the hearts of men, so that
at the moment of admiration they become capable of imitation.
During this second period Rome was more than once in danger. In the year
283 B.C. the Gauls destroyed one of her armies near Aretium (Arezzo), and
advanced to the Roman frontier, saying, “We are bound for Rome; the Gauls
know how to take it.” Seventy-two years afterwards the Cisalpine Gauls
swore they would not put off their baldricks till they had mounted the
Capitol, and they arrived within three days’ march of Rome. At every
appearance of this formidable enemy the alarm at Rome was great. The
senate raised all its forces and summoned its allies. The people demanded
a consultation of the Sibylline books, sacred volumes sold, it was said,
to Tarquinius Priscus by the sibyl Amalthea, and containing the secret of
the destinies of the Republic. They were actually opened in the year 228
B.C., and it was with terror found that the Gauls would twice take
possession of the soil of Rome. On the advice of the priests, there was
dug within the city, in the middle of the cattle-market, a huge pit, in
which two Gauls, a man and a woman, were entombed alive; for thus they
took possession of the soil of Rome, the oracle was fulfilled, and the
mishap averted. Thirteen years afterwards, on occasion of the disaster at
Cann, the same atrocity was again committed, at the same place and for the
same cause. And by a strange contrast, there was at the committing of this
barbarous act, “which was against Roman usage,” says Livy, a secret
feeling of horror, for, to appease the manes of the victims, a sacrifice
was instituted, which was celebrated every year at the pit, in the month
of November.
In spite of sometimes urgent peril, in spite of popular alarms, Rome,
during the course of this period, from 299 to 258 B.C., maintained an
increasing ascendency over the Gauls. She always cleared them off her
territory, several times ravaged theirs, on the two banks of the Po,—
called respectively Transpadan and Cispadan Gaul, and gained the majority
of the great battles she had to fight. Finally in the year 283 B.C., the
proprietor Drusus, after having ravaged the country of the Senonic Gauls,
carried off the very ingots and jewels, it was said, which had been given
to their ancestors as the price of their retreat. Solemn proclamation was
made that the ransom of the Capitol had returned within its walls; and,
sixty years afterwards, the Consul M. Cl. Marcellus, having defeated at
Clastidium a numerous army of Gauls, and with his own hand slain their
general, Virdumar, had the honor of dedicating to the temple of Jupiter
the third “grand spoils” taken since the foundation of Rome, and of
ascending the Capitol, himself conveying the armor of Virdumar, for he had
got hewn an oaken trunk, round which he had arranged the helmet, tunic,
and breastplate of the barbarian king.
Nor was war Rome’s only weapon against her enemies. Besides the ability of
her generals and the discipline of her legions, she had the sagacity of
her Senate. The Gauls were not wanting in intelligence or dexterity, but
being too free to go quietly under a master’s hand, and too barbarous for
self-government, carried away, as they were, by the interest or passion of
the moment, they could not long act either in concert or with sameness of
purpose. Far-sightedness and the spirit of persistence were, on the
contrary, the familiar virtues of the Roman Senate. So soon as they had
penetrated Cisalpine Gaul, they labored to gain there a permanent footing,
either by sowing dissension amongst the Gallic peoplets that lived there,
or by founding Roman colonies. In the year 283 B.C., several Roman
families arrived, with colors flying and under the guidance of three
triumvirs or commissioners, on a territory to the north-east, on the
borders of the Adriatic. The triumvirs had a round hole dug, and there
deposited some fruits and a handful of earth brought from Roman soil; then
yoking to a plough, having a copper share, a white bull and a white
heifer, they marked out by a furrow a large enclosure. The rest followed,
flinging within the line the ridges thrown up by the plough. When the line
was finished, the bull and the heifer were sacrificed with due pomp. It
was a Roman colony come to settle at Sena, on the very site of the chief
town of those Senonic Gauls who had been conquered and driven out. Fifteen
years afterwards another Roman colony was founded at Ariminum (Rimini), on
the frontier of the Bolan Gauls. Fifty years later still two others, on
the two banks of the Po, Cremona and Placentia (Plaisance). Rome had then,
in the midst of her enemies, garrisons, magazines of arms and provisions,
and means of supervision and communication. Thence proceeded at one time
troops, at another intrigues, to carry dismay or disunion amongst the
Gauls.
Towards the close of the third century before our era, the triumph of Rome
in Cisalpine Gaul seemed nigh to accomplishment, when news arrived that
the Romans’ most formidable enemy, Hannibal, meditating a passage from
Africa into Italy by Spain and Gaul, was already at work, by his
emissaries, to insure for his enterprise the concurrence of the
Transalpine and Cisalpine Gauls. The Senate ordered the envoys they had
just then at Carthage to traverse Gaul on returning, and seek out allies
there against Hannibal. The envoys halted amongst the Gallo-Iberian
peoplets who lived at the foot of the eastern Pyrenees. There, in the
midst of the warriors assembled in arms, they charged them in the name of
the great and powerful Roman people, not to suffer the Carthaginians to
pass through their territory. Tumultuous laughter arose at a request that
appeared so strange. “You wish us,” was the answer, “to draw down war upon
ourselves to avert it from Italy, and to give our own fields over to
devastation to save yours. We have no cause to complain of the
Carthaginians or to be pleased with the Romans, or to take up arms for the
Romans and against the Carthaginians. We, on the contrary, hear that the
Roman people drive out from their lands, in Italy, men of our nation,
impose tribute upon them, and make them undergo other indignities.” So the
envoys of Rome quitted Gaul without allies.
Hannibal, on the other hand, did not meet with all the favor and all the
enthusiasm he had anticipated. Between the Pyrenees and the Alps several
peoplets united with him; and several showed coldness, or even hostility.
In his passage of the Alps the mountain tribes harassed him incessantly.
Indeed, in Cisalpine Gaul itself there was great division and hesitation;
for Rome had succeeded in inspiring her partisans with confidence and her
enemies with fear. Hannibal was often obliged to resort to force even
against the Gauls whose alliance he courted, and to ravage their lands in
order to drive them to take up arms. Nay, at the conclusion of an
alliance, and in the very camp of the Carthaginians, the Gauls sometimes
hesitated still, and sometimes rose against Hannibal, accused him of
ravaging their country, and refused to obey his orders. However, the
delights of victory and of pillage at last brought into full play the
Cisalpine Gauls’ natural hatred of Rome. After Ticinus and Trebia,
Hannibal had no more zealous and devoted troops. At the battle of Lake
Trasimene he lost fifteen hundred men, nearly all Gauls; at that of Canine
he had thirty thousand of them, forming two thirds of his army; and at the
moment of action they cast away their tunics and checkered cloaks (similar
to the plaids of the Gals or Scottish Highlanders), and fought naked from
the belt upwards, according to their custom when they meant to conquer or
die. Of five thousand five hundred men that the victory of Cannae cost
Hannibal, four thousand were Gauls. All Cisalpine Gaul was moved;
enthusiasm was at its height; new bands hurried off to recruit the army of
the Carthaginian who, by dint of patience and genius, brought Rome within
an ace of destruction, with the assistance almost entirely of the
barbarians he had come to seek at her gates, and whom he had at first
found so cowed and so vacillating.
When the day of reverses came, and Rome had recovered her ascendency, the
Gauls were faithful to Hannibal; and when at length he was forced to
return to Africa, the Gallic bands, whether from despair or attachment,
followed him thither. In the year 200 B.C., at the famous battle of Zama,
which decided matters between Rome and Carthage, they again formed a third
of the Carthaginian army, and showed that they were, in the words of Livy,
“inflamed by that innate hatred towards the Romans which is peculiar to
their race.”
This was the third period of the struggle between the Gauls and the Romans
in Italy. Rome, well advised by this terrible war of the danger with which
she was ever menaced by the Cisalpine Gauls, formed the resolution of no
longer restraining them, but of subduing them and conquering their
territory. She spent thirty years (from 200 to 170 B.C.) in the execution
of this design, proceeding by means of war, of founding Roman colonies,
and of sowing dissension amongst the Gallic peoplets. In vain did the two
principal, the Boians and the Insubrians, endeavor to rouse and rally all
the rest: some hesitated; some absolutely refused, and remained neutral.
The resistance was obstinate. The Gauls, driven from their fields and
their towns, established themselves, as their ancestors had done, in the
forests, whence they emerged only to fall furiously upon the Romans. And
then, if the engagement were indecisive, if any legions wavered, the Roman
centurions hurled their colors into the midst of the enemy, and the
legionaries dashed on at all risks to recover them. At Parma and Bologna,
in the towns taken from the Gauls, Roman colonies came at once and planted
them-selves. Day by day did Rome advance. At length, in the year 190 B.C.,
the wrecks of the one hundred and twelve tribes which had formed the
nation of the Boians, unable any longer to resist, and unwilling to
submit, rose as one man, and departed from Italy.
The Senate, with its usual wisdom, multiplied the number of Roman colonies
in the conquered territory, treated with moderation the tribes that
submitted, and gave to Cisalpine Gaul the name of the Cisalpine or Hither
Gallic Province, which was afterwards changed for that of Gallia Togata or
Roman Gaul. Then, declaring that nature herself had placed the Alps
between Gaul and Italy as an insurmountable barrier, the Senate pronounced
“a curse on whosoever should attempt to cross it.”
CHAPTER III.
THE ROMANS IN GAUL.
It was Rome herself that soon crossed that barrier of the Alps which she
had pronounced fixed by nature and insurmountable. Scarcely was she
mistress of Cisalpine Gaul when she entered upon a quarrel with the tribes
which occupied the mountain-passes. With an unsettled frontier, and
between neighbors of whom one is ambitious and the other barbarian,
pretexts and even causes are never wanting. It is likely that the Gallic
mountaineers were not careful to abstain, they and their flocks, from
descending upon the territory that had become Roman. The Romans, in turn,
penetrated into the hamlets, carried off flocks and people, and sold them
in the public markets at Cremona, at Placentia, and in all their colonies.
The Gauls of the Alps demanded succor of the Transalpine Gauls, applying
to a powerful chieftain, named Cincibil, whose influence extended
throughout the mountains. But the terror of the Roman name had reached
across. Cincibil sent to Rome a deputation, with his brother at their
head, to set forth the grievances of the mountaineers, and especially to
complain of the consul Cassius, who had carried off and sold several
thousands of Gauls. Without making any concession, the Senate was
gracious. Cassius was away; he must be waited for. Meanwhile the Gauls
were well treated; Cincibil and his brother received as presents two
golden collars, five silver vases, two horses fully caparisoned, and Roman
dresses for all their suite. Still nothing was done.
Another, a greater and more decisive opportunity offered itself.
Marseilles was an ally of the Romans. As the rival of Carthage, and with
the Gauls forever at her gates, she had need of Rome by sea and land. She
pretended, also, to the most eminent and intimate friendship with Rome.
Her founder, the Phocean Euxenes, had gone to Rome, it was said, and
concluded a treaty with Tarquinius Priscus. She had gone into mourning
when Rome was burned by the Gauls; she had ordered a public levy to aid
towards the ransom of the Capitol. Rome did not dispute these claims to
remembrance. The friendship of Marseilles was of great use to her. In the
whole course of her struggle with Carthage, and but lately, at the passage
of Hannibal through Gaul, Rome had met with the best of treatment there.
She granted the Massilians a place amongst her senators at the festivals
of the Republic, and exemption from all duty in her ports. Towards the
middle of the second century B.C. Marseilles was at war with certain
Gallic tribes, her neighbors, whose territory she coveted. Two of her
colonies, Nice and Antibes, were threatened. She called on Rome for help.
A Roman deputation went to decide the quarrel; but the Gauls refused to
obey its summons, and treated it with insolence. The deputation returned
with an army, succeeded in beating the refractory tribes, and gave their
land to the Massilians. The same thing occurred repeatedly with the same
result. Within the space of thirty years nearly all the tribes between the
Rhone and the Var, in the country which was afterwards Provence, were
subdued and driven back amongst the mountains, with notice not to approach
within a mile of the coast in general, and a mile and a half of the places
of disembarkation. But the Romans did not stop there. They did not mean to
conquer for Marseilles alone. In the year 123 B.C., at some leagues to the
north of the Greek city, near a little river, then called the Coenus and
nowadays the Arc, the consul C. Sextius Calvinus had noticed, during his
campaign, an abundance of thermal springs, agreeably situated amidst
wood-covered hills. There he constructed an enclosure, aqueducts, baths,
houses, a town in fact, which he called after himself, Aquae Sextice, the
modern Aix, the first Roman establishment in Transalpine Gaul. As in the
case of Cisalpine Gaul, with Roman colonies came Roman intrigue and
dissensions got up and fomented amongst the Gauls. And herein Marseilles
was a powerful seconder; for she kept up communications with all the
neighboring tribes, and fanned the spirit of faction. After his victories,
the consul C. Sextius, seated at his tribunal, was selling his prisoners
by auction, when one of them came up to him and said, “I have always liked
and served the Romans; and for that reason I have often incurred outrage
and danger at the hands of my countrymen.” The consul had him set free,—him
and his family,—and even gave him leave to point out amongst the
captives any for whom he would like to procure the same kindness. At his
request nine hundred were released. The man’s name was Crato, a Greek
name, which points to a connection with Marseilles or one of her colonies.
The Gauls, moreover, ran of themselves into the Roman trap. Two of their
confederations, the AEduans, of whom mention has already been made, and
the Allobrogians, who were settled between the Alps, the Isere, and the
Rhone, were at war. A third confederation, the most powerful in Gaul at
this time, the Arvernians, who were rivals of the AEduans, gave their
countenance to the Allobrogians. The AEduans, with whom the Massilians had
commercial dealings, solicited through these latter the assistance of
Rome. A treaty was easily concluded. The AEduans obtained from the Romans
the title of friends and allies; and the Romans received from the AEduans
that of brothers, which amongst the Gauls implied a sacred tie. The consul
Domitius forthwith commanded the Allobrogians to respect the territory of
the allies of Rome. The Allobrogians rose up in arms and claimed the aid
of the Arvernians. But even amongst them, in the very heart of Gaul, Rome
was much dreaded; she was not to be encountered without hesitation. So
Bituitus, King of the Arvernians, was for trying accommodation. He was a
powerful and wealthy chieftain. His father Luern used to give amongst the
mountains magnificent entertainments; he had a space of twelve square
furlongs enclosed, and dispensed wine, mead, and beer from cisterns made
within the enclosure; and all the Arvernians crowded to his feasts.
Bituitus displayed before the Romans his barbaric splendor. A numerous
escort, superbly clad, surrounded his ambassador; in attendance were packs
of enormous hounds; and in front; went a bard, or poet, who sang, with
rotte or harp in hand, the glory of Bituitus and of the Arvernian people.
Disdainfully the consul received and sent back the embassy. War broke out;
the Allobrogians, with the usual confidence and hastiness of all
barbarians, attacked alone, without waiting for the Arvernians, and were
beaten at the confluence of the Rhone and the Sorgue, a little above
Avignon. The next year, 121 B.C., the Arvernians in their turn descended
from the mountains, and crossed the Rhone with all their tribes, diversely
armed and clad, and ranged each about its own chieftain. In his barbaric
vanity, Bituitus marched to war with the same pomp that he had in vain
displayed to obtain peace. He sat upon a car glittering with silver; he
wore a plaid of striking colors; and he brought in his train a pack of
war-hounds. At the sight of the Roman legions, few in number, iron-clad,
in serried ranks that took up little space, he contemptuously cried,
“There is not a meal for my hounds.”
The Arvernians were beaten, as the Allobrogians had been. The hounds of
Bituitus were of little use to him against the elephants which the Romans
had borrowed from Asiatic usage, and which spread consternation amongst
the Gauls. The Roman historians say that the Arvernian army was two
hundred thousand strong, and that one hundred and twenty thousand were
slain; but the figures are absurd, like most of those found in ancient
chronicles. We know nowadays, thanks to modern civilization, which shows
everything in broad daylight, and measures everything with proper caution,
that only the most populous and powerful nations, and that at great
expenditure of trouble and time, can succeed in moving armies of two
hundred thousand men, and that no battle, however murderous it may be,
ever costs one hundred and twenty thousand lives.
Rome treated the Arvernians with consideration; but the Allobrogians lost
their existence as a nation. The Senate declared them subject to the Roman
people; and all the country comprised between the Alps, the Rhone from its
entry into the Lake of Geneva to its mouth, and the Mediterranean, was
made a Roman consular province, which means that every year a consul must
march thither with his army. In the three following years, indeed, the
consuls extended the boundaries of the new province, on the right bank of
the Rhone, to the frontier of the Pyrenees southward. In the year 115 B.C.
a colony of Roman citizens was conducted to Narbonne, a town even then of
importance, in spite of the objections made by certain senators who were
unwilling, say the historians, so to expose Roman citizens “to the waves
of barbarism.” This was the second colony which went and established
itself out of Italy; the first had been founded on the ruins of Carthage.
Having thus completed their conquest, the Senate, to render possession
safe and sure, decreed the occupation of the passes of the Alps which
opened Gaul to Italy. There was up to that time no communication with Gaul
save along the Mediterranean, by a narrow and difficult path, which has
become in our time the beautiful route called the Corniche. The mountain
tribes defended their independence with desperation; when that of the
Stumians, who occupied the pass of the maritime Alps, saw their inability
to hold their own, they cut the throats of their wives and children, set
fire to their houses, and threw themselves into the flames. But the Senate
pursued its course imperturbably. All the chief defiles of the Alps fell
into its hands. The old Phoenician road, restored by the consul Domitius,
bore thenceforth his name (Via Donaitia), and less than sixty years after
Cisalpine Gaul had been reduced to a Roman province, Rome possessed, in
Transalpine Gaul, a second province, whither she sent her armies, and
where she established her citizens without obstruction. But Providence
seldom allows men, even in the midst of their successes, to forget for
long how precarious they are; and when He is pleased to remind them, it is
not by words, as the Persians reminded their king, but by fearful events
that He gives His warnings. At the very moment when Rome believed herself
set free from Gallic invasions, and on the point of avenging herself by a
course of conquest, a new invasion, more extensive and more barbarous,
came bursting upon Rome and upon Gaul at the same time, and plunged them
together in the same troubles and the same perils.
In the year 113 B.C. there appeared to the north of the Adriatic, on the
right bank of the Danube, an immense multitude of barbarians, ravaging
Noricum and threatening Italy. Two nations predominated; the Kymrians or
Cimbrians, and the Teutons, the national name of the Germans. They came
from afar, northward, from the Cimbrian peninsula, nowadays Jutland, and
from the countries bordering on the Baltic which nowadays form the duchies
of Holstein and Schleswig. A violent shock of earthquake, a terrible
inundation, had driven them, they said, from their homes; and those
countries do indeed show traces of such events. And Cimbrians and Teutons
had been for some time roaming over Germany.
The consul Papirius Carbo, despatched in all haste to defend the frontier,
bade them, in the name of the Roman people, to withdraw. The barbarians
modestly replied that they had no intention of settling in Noricum, and if
the Romans had rights over the country, they would carry their arms
elsewhere. The consul, who had found haughtiness succeed, thought he might
also employ perfidy against the barbarians. He offered guides to conduct
them out of Noricum; and the guides misled them. The consul attacked them
unexpectedly during the night, and was beaten.
However, the barbarians, still fearful, did not venture into Italy. They
roamed for three years along the Danube, as far as the mountains of
Macedonia and Thrace. Then retracing their steps, and marching eastward,
they inundated the valleys of the Helvetic Alps, now Switzerland, having
their numbers swelled by other tribes, Gallic or German, who preferred
joining in pillage to undergoing it. The Ambrons, among others, a Gallic
peoplet that had taken refuge in Helvetia after the expulsion of the
Umbrians by the Etruscans from Italy, joined the Cimbrians and Teutons;
and in the year 110 B.C. all together entered Gaul, at first by way of
Belgica, and then, continuing their wanderings and ravages in central
Gaul, they at last reached the Rhone, on the frontiers of the Roman
province.
There the name of Rome again arrested their progress; they applied to her
anew for lands, with the offer of their services. “Rome,” answered M.
Silanus, who commanded in the province, “has neither lands to give you nor
services to accept from you.” He attacked them in their camp, and was
beaten.
Three consuls, L. Cassius, C. Servilius Omepio, and Cu. Manlius,
successively experienced the same fate. With the barbarians victory bred
presumption. Their chieftains met and deliberated whether they should not
forthwith cross into Italy, to exterminate or enslave the Romans, and make
Kymrian spoken at Rome. Scaurus, a prisoner, was in the tent, loaded with
fetters, during the deliberation. He was questioned about the resources of
his country. “Cross not the Alps,” said he; “go not into Italy: the Romans
are invincible.” In a transport of fury the chieftain of the Kymrians,
Boiorix by name, fell upon the Roman, and ran him through. Howbeit the
advice of Scaurus was followed. The barbarians did not as yet dare to
decide upon invading Italy; but they freely scoured the Roman province,
meeting here with repulse, and there with re-enforcement from the peoplets
who formed the inhabitants. The Tectosagian Voles, Hymrian in origin and
maltreated by Rome, joined them. Then, on a sudden, whilst the Teutons and
Ambrons remained in Gaul, the Kymrians passed over to Spain without
apparent motive, and probably as an overswollen torrent divides, and
disperses its waters in all directions. The commotion at Rome was extreme;
never had so many or such wild barbarians threatened the Republic; never
had so many or such large Roman armies been beaten in succession. There
was but one man, it was said, who could avert the danger, and give Rome
the ascendency. It was Marius, low-born, but already illustrious; esteemed
by the Senate for his genius as a commander and for his victories; swaying
at his will the people, who saw in him one of themselves, and admired
without envying him; beloved and feared by the army for his bravery, his
rigorous discipline, and his readiness to share their toils and dangers;
stern and rugged; without education, eloquence, or riches; ill-suited for
shining in public assemblies, but resolute and dexterous in action; verily
made to dominate the vigorous but unrefined multitude, whether in camp or
city, partly by participating their feelings, partly by giving them in his
own person a specimen of the deserts and sometimes of the virtues which
they esteem but do not possess.
He was consul in Africa, where he was putting an end to the war with
Jugurtha. He was elected a second time consul, without interval and in his
absence, contrary to all the laws of the Republic. Scarcely had he
returned, when, on descending from the Capitol, where he had just received
a triumph for having conquered and captured Jugurtha, he set out for Gaul.
On his arrival, instead of proceeding, as his predecessors, to attack the
barbarians at once, he confined himself to organizing and inuring his
troops, subjecting them to frequent marches, all kinds of military
exercises, and long and hard labor. To insure supplies he made them dig,
towards the mouths of the Rhone, a large canal which formed a junction
with the river a little above Arles, and which, at its entrance into the
sea, offered good harborage for vessels. This canal, which existed for a
long while under the name of Rossae Mariance (the dikes of Marius), is
filled up nowadays; but at its southern extremity the village of Foz still
preserves a remembrance of it. Trained in this severe school, the soldiers
acquired such a reputation for sobriety and laborious assiduity, that they
were proverbially called Marius’s mules.
He was as careful for their moral state as for their physical fitness, and
labored to exalt their imaginations as well as to harden their bodies. In
that camp, and amidst those toils in which he kept them strictly engaged,
frequent sacrifices, and scrupulous care in consulting the oracles, kept
superstition at a white heat. A Syrian prophetess, named Martha, who had
been sent to Marius by his wife Julia, the aunt of Julius Caesar, was ever
with him, and accompanied him at the sacred ceremonies and on the march,
being treated with the greatest respect, and having vast influence over
the minds of the soldiers.
Two years rolled on in this fashion; and yet Marius would not move. The
increasing devastation of the country, fire, and famine, the despair and
complaints of the inhabitants, did not shake his resolution. Nor was the
confidence he inspired both in the camp and at Rome a whit shaken: he was
twice re-elected consul, once while he was still absent, and once during a
visit he paid to Rome to give directions to his party in person.
It was at Rome, in the year 102 B.C., that he learned how the Kymrians,
weary of Spain, had recrossed the Pyrenees, rejoined their old comrades,
and had at last resolved, in concert, to invade Italy; the Kymrians from
the north, by way of Helvetia and Noricum, the Teutons and Ambrons from
the south, by way of the maritime Alps. They were to form a junction on
the banks of the Po, and thence march together on Rome. At this news
Marius returned forthwith to Gaul, and, without troubling himself about
the Kymrians, who had really put themselves in motion towards the
north-east, he placed his camp so as to cover at one and the same time the
two Roman roads which crossed at Arles, and by one of which the
Ambro-Teutons must necessarily pass to enter Italy on the south.
They soon appeared “in immense numbers,” say the historians, “with their
hideous looks and their wild cries,” drawing up their chariots and
planting their tents in front of the Roman camp. They showered upon Marius
and his soldiers continual insult and defiance. The Romans, in their
irritation, would fain have rushed out of their camp, but Marius
restrained them. “It is no question,” said he, with his simple and
convincing common sense, “of gaining triumphs and trophies; it is a
question of averting this storm of war and of saving Italy.” A Teutonic
chieftain came one day up to the very gates of the camp, and challenged
him to fight. Marius had him informed that if he were tired of life he
could go and hang himself. As the barbarian still persisted, Marius sent
him a gladiator.
However, he made his soldiers, in regular succession, mount the ramparts,
to get them familiarized with the cries, looks, arms, and movements of the
barbarians. The most distinguished of his officers, young Sertorius, who
understood and spoke Gallic well, penetrated, in the disguise of a Gaul,
into the camp of the Ambrons, and informed Marius of what was going on
there.
At last the barbarians, in their impatience, having vainly attempted to
storm the Roman camp, struck their own, and put themselves in motion
towards the Alps. For six whole days, it is said, their bands were
defiling beneath the ramparts of the Romans, and crying, “Have you any
message for your wives? We shall soon be with them.”
Marius, too, struck his camp, and followed them. They halted, both of
them, near Aix, on the borders of the Coenus, the barbarians in the
valley, Marius on a hill which commanded it. The ardor of the Romans was
at its height; it was warm weather; there was a want of water on the hill,
and the soldiers murmured. “You are men,” said Marius, pointing to the
river below, “and there is water to be bought with blood.” “Why don’t you
lead us against them at once, then,” said a soldier, “whilst we still have
blood in our veins?” “We must first fortify our camp,” answered Marius
quietly.
The soldiers obeyed: but the hour of battle had come, and well did Marius
know it. It commenced on the brink of the Coenus, between some Ambrons who
were bathing and some Roman slaves gone down to draw water. When the whole
horde of the Ambrons advanced to the battle, shouting their war-cry of
Ambra! Ambra! a body of Gallic auxiliaries in the Roman army, and in the
first rank, heard them with great amazement; for it was their own name and
their own cry; there were tribes of Ambrons in the Alps subjected to Rome
as well as in the Helvetic Alps; and Ambra! Ambra! resounded on both
sides.
The battle lasted two days, the first against the Ambrons, the second
against the Teutons. Both were beaten, in spite of their savage bravery,
and the equal bravery of their women, who defended, with indomitable
obstinacy, the cars with which they had remained almost alone, in charge
of the children and the booty. After the women, it was necessary to
exterminate the hounds who defended their masters’ bodies. Here again the
figures of the historians are absurd, although they differ; the most
extravagant raise the number of barbarians slain to two hundred thousand,
and that of the prisoners to eighty thousand; the most moderate stop at
one hundred thousand. In any case, the carnage was great, for the
battle-field, where all these corpses rested without burial, rotting in
the sun and rain, got the name of Campi Putridi, or Fields of
Putrefaction, a name traceable even nowadays in that of Pourrires, a
neighboring village.
As to the booty, the Roman army with one voice made a free gift of it to
Marius; but he, remembering, perhaps, what had been lately done by the
barbarians after the defeat of the consuls Manlius and Czepio, determined
to have it all burned in honor of the gods. He had a great sacrifice
prepared. The soldiers, crowned with laurel, were ranged about the pyre;
their general, holding on high a blazing torch, was about to apply the
light with his own hand, when suddenly, on the very spot, whether by
design or accident, came from Rome the news that Marius had just been for
the fifth time elected consul. In the midst of acclamations from his army,
and with a fresh chaplet bound upon his brow, he applied the torch in
person, and completed the sacrifice.
Were we travelling in Provence, in the neighborhood of Aix, we should
encounter, peradventure, some peasant who, whilst pointing out to us the
summit of a lull whereon, in all probability, Marius offered, nineteen
hundred and forty years ago, that glorious sacrifice, would say to us in
his native dialect, “Aqui es lou deloubre do la Vittoria:” “There is the
temple of victory.” There, indeed, was built, not far from a pyramid
erected in honor of Marius, a little temple dedicated to Victory. Thither,
every year, in the month of May, the population used to come and celebrate
a festival and light a bonfire, answered by other bonfires on the
neighboring heights. When Gaul became Christian, neither monument nor
festival perished; a saint took the place of the goddess, and the temple
of Victory became the church of St. Victoire. There are still ruins of it
to this day; the religious procession which succeeded the pagan festival
ceased only at the first outburst of the Revolution; and the vague memory
of a great national event still mingles in popular tradition with the
legends of the saint.
The Ambrons and Teutons beaten, there remained the Kymrians, who,
according to agreement, had repassed the Helvetic Alps and entered Italy
on the north-east, by way of the Adige. Marius marched against them in
July of the following year, 101 B.C. Ignorant of what had occurred in
Gaul, and possessed, as ever, with the desire of a settlement, they again
sent to him a deputation, saying, “Give us lands and towns for us and our
brethren.” “What brethren?” asked Marius. “The Teutons.” The Romans who
were about Marius began to laugh. “Let your brethren be,” said Marius;
“they have land, and will always have it; they received it from us.” The
Kymrians, perceiving the irony of his tone, burst out into threats,
telling Marius that he should suffer for it at their hands first, and
afterwards at those of the Teutons when they arrived. “They are here,”
rejoined Marius; “you must not depart without saluting your brethren;” and
he had Teutobod, King of the Teutons, brought out with other captive
chieftains. The envoys reported the sad news in their own camp, and three
days afterwards, July 30, a great battle took place between the Kymrians
and the Romans in the Raudine Plains, a large tract near Verceil.
It were unnecessary to dwell on the details of the battle, which resembled
that of Aix; besides, fought as it was in Italy and by none but Romans, it
has but little to do with a history of Gaul. It has been mentioned only to
make known the issue of that famous invasion, of which Gaul was the
principal theatre. For a moment it threatened the very existence of the
Roman Republic. The victories of Marius arrested the torrent, but did not
dry up its source. The great movement which drove from Asia to Europe, and
from eastern to western Europe, masses of roving populations, followed its
course, bringing incessantly upon the Roman frontiers new comers and new
perils. A greater man than Marius, Julius Caesar in fact, saw that to
effectually resist these clouds of barbaric assailants, the country into
which they poured must be conquered and made Roman. The conquest of Gaul
was the accomplishment of that idea, and the decisive step towards the
transformation of the Roman republic into a Roman empire.
CHAPTER IV.
GAUL CONQUERED BY JULIUS CAESAR.
Historians, ancient and modern, have attributed to the Roman Senate, from
the time of the establishment of the Roman province in Gaul, a
long-premeditated design of conquering Gaul altogether. Others have said
that when Julius Caesar, in the year of Rome 696, (58 B C.) got himself
appointed proconsul in Gaul, his single aim was to form for himself there
an army devoted to his person, of which he might avail himself to satisfy
his ambition and make himself master of Rome. We should not be too ready
to believe in these far-reaching and precise plans, conceived and settled
so long beforehand, whether by a senate or a single man. Prevision and
exact calculation do not count for so much in the lives of governments and
of peoples. It is unexpected events, inevitable situations, the imperious
necessities of successive epochs, which most often decide the conduct of
the greatest powers and the most able politicians. It is after the fair,
when the course of facts and their consequences has received full
development, that, amidst their tranquil meditations, annalists and
historians, in their learned way, attribute everything to systematic plans
and personal calculations on the part of the chief actors. There is much
less of combination than of momentary inspiration, derived from
circumstances, in the resolutions and conduct of political chiefs, kings,
senators, or great men. From the time that discord and corruption had
turned the Roman Republic into a bloody and tyrannical anarchy, the Roman
Senate no longer meditated grand designs, and its members were preoccupied
only with the question of escaping or avenging proscriptions. When Caesar
procured for himself the government for five years of the Gauls, the fact
was, that, not desiring to be a sanguinary dictator like Scylla, or a gala
chieftain like Pompey, he went and sought abroad, for his own glory and
fortune’s sake, in a war of general Roman interest, the means and chances
of success which were not furnished to him in Rome itself by the dogged
and monotonous struggle of the factions.
In spite of the victories of Marius, and the destruction or dispersion of
the Teutons and Cimbrians, the whole of Gaul remained seriously disturbed
and threatened. At the north-east, in Belgica, some bands of other
Teutons, who had begun to be called Germans (men of war), had passed over
the left bank of the Rhine, and were settling or wandering there without
definite purpose. In eastern and central Gaul, in the valleys of the Jura
and Auvergne, on the banks of the Saone, the Allier, and the Doubs, the
two great Gallic confederations, that of the AEduans and that of the
Arvernians, were disputing the preponderance, and making war one upon
another, seeking the aid, respectively, of the Romans and of the Germans.
At the foot of the Alps, the little nation of Allobrogians, having fallen
a prey to civil dissension, had given up its independence to Rome. Even in
southern and western Gaul the populations of Agnitania were rising, vexing
the Roman province, and rendering necessary, on both sides of the
Pyrenees, the intervention of Roman legions. Everywhere floods of barbaric
populations were pressing upon Gaul, were carrying disgnietude even where
they had not themselves yet penetrated, and causing presentiments of a
general commotion. The danger burst before long upon particular places and
in connection with particular names which have remained historical. In the
war with the confederation of the AEduans, that of the Arvernians called
to their aid the German Ariovistus, chieftain of a confederation of tribes
which, under the name of Suevians, were roving over the right bank of the
Rhine, ready at any time to cross the river. Ariovistus, with fifteen
thousand warriors at his back, was not slow in responding to the appeal.
The AEdaans were beaten; and Ariovistus settled amongst the Gauls who had
been thoughtless enough to appeal to him. Numerous bands of Suevians came
and rejoined him; and in two or three years after his victory he had about
him, it was said, one hundred and twenty thousand warriors. He had
appropriated to them a third of the territory of his Gallic allies, and he
imperiously demanded another third to satisfy other twenty-five thousand
of his old German comrades, who asked to share his booty and his new
country. One of the foremost AEduans, Divitiacus by name, went and invoked
the succor of the Roman people, the patrons of his confederation. He was
admitted to the presence of the Senate, and invited to be seated; but he
modestly declined, and standing, leaning upon his shield, he set forth the
sufferings and the claims of his country. He received kindly promises,
which at first remained without fruit. He, however, remained at Rome,
persistent in his solicitations, and carrying on intercourse with several
Romans of consideration, notably with Cicero, who says of him, “I knew
Divitiacus, the AEduan, who claimed proficiency in that natural science
which the Greeks call physiology, and he predicted the future, either by
augury or his own conjecture.” The Roman Senate, with the indecision and
indolence of all declining powers, hesitated to engage, for the AEduans’
sake, in a war against the invaders of a corner of Gallic territory. At
the same time that they gave a cordial welcome to Divitiacus, they entered
into negotiations with Ariovistus himself; they gave him beautiful
presents, the title of King, and even of friend; the only demand they made
was, that he should live peaceably in his new settlement, and not lend his
support to the fresh invasions of which there were symptoms in Gaul, and
which were becoming too serious for resolutions not to be taken to repel
them.
A people of Gallic race, the Helvetians, who inhabited present
Switzerland, where the old name still abides beside the modern, found
themselves incessantly threatened, ravaged, and invaded by the German
tribes which pressed upon their frontiers. After some years of perplexity
and internal discord, the whole Helvetic nation decided upon abandoning
its territory, and going to seek in Gaul, westward, it is said, on the
borders of the ocean, a more tranquil settlement. Being informed of this
design, the Roman Senate and Caesar, at that time consul, resolved to
protect the Roman province and their Gallic allies, the AEduans, against
this inundation of roving neighbors. The Helvetians none the less
persisted in their plan; and in the spring of the year of Rome 696 (58 B
C.) they committed to the flames, in the country they were about to leave,
twelve towns, four hundred villages, and all their houses; loaded their
cars with provisions for three months, and agreed to meet at the southern
point of the Lake of Geneva. They found on their reunion, says Caesar, a
total of three hundred and sixty-eight thousand emigrants, including
ninety-two thousand men-at-arms. The Switzerland which they abandoned
numbers now two million five hundred thousand inhabitants. But when the
Helvetians would have entered Gaul, they found there Caesar, who, after
having got himself appointed proconsul for five years, had arrived
suddenly at Geneva, prepared to forbid their passage. They sent to him a
deputation, to ask leave, they said, merely to traverse the Roman province
without causing the least damage. Caesar knew as well how to gain time as
not to lose any: he was not ready; so he put off the Helvetians to a
second conference. In the interval he employed his legionaries, who could
work as well as fight, in erecting upon the left bank of the Rhone a wall
sixteen feet high and ten miles long, which rendered the passage of the
river very difficult, and, on the return of the Helvetian envoys, he
formally forbade them to pass by the road they had proposed to follow.
They attempted to take another, and to cross not the Rhone but the Saone,
and march thence towards western Gaul. But whilst they were arranging for
the execution of this movement, Caesar, who had up to that time only four
legions at his disposal, returned to Italy, brought away five fresh
legions, and arrived on the left bank of the Saone at the moment when the
rear-guard of the Helvetians was embarking to rejoin the main body which
had already pitched its camp on the right bank. Caesar cut to pieces this
rear-guard, crossed the river, in his turn, with his legions, pursued the
emigrants without relaxation, came in contact with them on several
occasions, at one time attacking them or repelling their attacks, at
another receiving and giving audience to their envoys without ever
consenting to treat with them, and before the end of the year he had so
completely beaten, decimated, dispersed and driven them back, that of
three hundred and sixty-eight thousand Helvetians who had entered Gaul,
but one hundred and ten thousand escaped from the Romans, and were
enabled, by flight, to regain their country.
AEduans, Sequanians, or Arvernians, all the Gauls interested in the
struggle thus terminated, were eager to congratulate Caesar upon his
victory; but if they were delivered from the invasion of the Helvetians,
another scourge fell heavily upon them; Ariovistus and the Germans, who
were settled upon their territory, oppressed them cruelly, and day by day
fresh bands were continually coming to aggravate the evil and the danger.
They adjured Caesar to protect them from these swarms of barbarians. “In a
few years,” said they, “all the Germans will have crossed the Rhine, and
all the Gauls will be driven from Gaul, for the soil of Germany cannot
compare with that of Gaul, any more than the mode of life. If Caesar and
the Roman people refuse to aid us, there is nothing left for us but to
abandon our lands, as the Helvetians would have done in their case, and go
seek, afar from the Germans, another dwelling-place.” Caesar, touched by
so prompt an appeal to the power of his name and fame gave ear to the
prayer of the Gauls. But he was for trying negotiation before war. He
proposed to Ariovistus an interview “at which they aright treat in common
of affairs of importance for both.” Ariovistus replied that “if he wanted
anything of Caesar, he would go in search of him; if Caesar had business
with him, it was for Caesar to come.” Caesar thereupon conveyed to him by
messenger his express injunctions, “not to summon any more from the
borders of the Rhine fresh multitudes of men, and to cease from vexing the
AEduans and making war on them, them and their allies. Otherwise, Caesar
would not fail to avenge their wrongs.” Ariovistus replied that “he had
conquered the AEduans. The Roman people were in the habit of treating the
vanquished after their own pleasure, and not the advice of another; he
too, himself, had the same right. Caesar said he would avenge the wrongs
of the AEduans; but no one had ever attacked him with impunity. If Caesar
would like to try it, let him come; he would learn what could be done by
the bravery of the Germans, who were as yet unbeaten, who were trained to
arms, who for fourteen years had not slept beneath a roof.” At the moment
he received this answer, Caesar had just heard that fresh bands of
Suevians were encamped on the right bank of the Rhine, ready to cross, and
that Ariovistus with all his forces was making towards Vesontio
(Besancon), the chief town of the Sequanians. Caesar forthwith put himself
in motion, occupied Vesontio, established there a strong garrison, and
made his arrangements for issuing from it with his legions to go and
anticipate the attack of Ariovistus. Then came to him word that no little
disquietude was showing itself among the Roman troops; that many soldiers
and even officers appeared anxious about the struggle with the Germans,
their ferocity, the vast forests that must be traversed to reach them, the
difficult roads, and the transport of provisions; there was an
apprehension of broken courage, and perchance of numerous desertions.
Caesar summoned a great council of war, to which he called the chief
officers of his legions; he complained bitterly of their alarm, recalled
to their memory their recent success against the Helvetians, and scoffed
at the rumors spread about the Germans, and at the doubts with which there
was an attempt to inspire him about the fidelity and obedience of his
troops. “An army,” said he, “disobeys only the commander who leads them
badly and has no good fortune, or is found guilty of cupidity and
malversation. My whole life shows my integrity, and the war against the
Helvetians my good fortune. I shall order forthwith the departure I had
intended to put off. I shall strike the camp the very next night, at the
fourth watch; I wish to see as soon as possible whether honor and duty or
fear prevail in your ranks. If there be any refusal to follow me, I shall
march with only the tenth legion, of which I have no doubt; that shall be
my praetorian cohort.”
The cheers of the troops, officers and men, were the answer given to the
reproaches and hopes of their general: all hesitation passed away; and
Caesar set out with his army. He fetched a considerable compass, to spare
them the passage of thick forests, and, after a seven days’ march, arrived
at a short distance from the camp of Ariovistus. On learning that Caesar
was already so near, the German sent to him a messenger with proposals for
the interview which was but lately demanded, and to which there was no
longer any obstacle, since Caesar had himself arrived upon the spot. And
the interview really took place, with mutual precautions for safety and
warlike dignity. Caesar repeated all the demands he had made upon
Ariovistus, who, in his turn, maintained his refusal, asking, “What was
wanted? Why had foot been set upon his lands? That part of Gaul was his
province, just as the other was the Roman province. If Caesar did not
retire, and withdraw his troops, he should consider him no more a friend,
but an enemy. He knew that if he were to slay Caesar, he would recommend
himself to many nobles and chiefs amongst the Roman people; he had learned
as much from their own envoys. But if Caesar retired and left him,
Ariovistus, in free possession of Gaul, he would pay liberally in return,
and would wage on Caesar’s behalf, without trouble or danger to him, any
wars he might desire.” During this interview it is probable that Caesar
smiled more than once at the boldness and shrewdness of the barbarian.
Ultimately some horsemen in the escort of Ariovistus began to caracole
towards the Romans, and to hurl at them stones and darts. Caesar ordered
his men to make no reprisals, and broke off the conference. The next day
but one Ariovistus proposed a renewal; but Caesar refused, having decided
to bring the quarrel to an issue. Several days in succession he led out
his legions from their camp, and offered battle; but Ariovistus remained
within his lines. Caesar then took the resolution of assailing the German
camp. At his approach, the Germans at length moved out from their
intrenchments, arrayed by peoplets, and defiling in front of cars filled
with their women, who implored them with tears not to deliver them in
slavery to the Romans. The struggle was obstinate, and not without moments
of anxiety and partial check for the Romans; but the genius of Caesar and
strict discipline of the legions carried the day. The rout of the Germans
was complete; they fled towards the Rhine, which was only a few leagues
from the field of battle. Ariovistus himself was amongst the fugitives; he
found a boat by the river side, and recrossed into Germany, where he died
shortly afterwards, “to the great grief of the Germans,” says Caesar. The
Suevian bands, who were awaiting on the right bank the result of the
struggle, plunged back again within their own territory. And so the
invasion of the Germans was stopped as the emigration of the Helvetians
had been; and Caesar had only to conquer Gaul.
It is uncertain whether he had from the very first determined the whole
plan; but so soon as he set seriously to work, he felt all the
difficulties. The expulsion of the Helvetian emigrants and of the German
invaders left the Romans and Gauls alone face to face; and from that
moment the Romans were, in the eyes of the Gauls, foreigners, conquerors,
oppressors. Their deeds aggravated day by day the feelings excited by the
situation; they did not ravage the country, as the Germans had done; they
did not appropriate such and such a piece of land; but everywhere they
assumed the mastery: they laid heavy burdens upon the population; they
removed the rightful chieftains who were opposed to them, and forcibly
placed or maintained in power those only who were subservient to them.
Independently of the Roman empire, Caesar established everywhere his own
personal influence; by turns gentle or severe, caressing or threatening,
he sought and created for himself partisans amongst the Gauls, as he had
amongst his army, showing favor to those only whose devotion was assured
to him. To national antipathy towards foreigners must be added the
intrigues and personal rivalry of the conquered in their relations with
the conqueror. Conspiracies were hatched, insurrections soon broke out in
nearly every part of Gaul, in the heart even of the peoplets most subject
to Roman dominion. Every movement of the kind was for Caesar a
provocation, a temptation, almost an obligation to conquest. He accepted
them and profited by them, with that promptitude in resolution, boldness
and address in execution, and cool indifference as to the means employed,
which were characteristic of his genius. During nine years, from A. U. C.
696 to 705, and in eight successive campaigns, he carried his troops, his
lieutenants, himself, and, ere long, war or negotiation, corruption,
discord, or destruction in his path, amongst the different nations and
confederations of Gaul, Celtic, Kymric, Germanic, Iberian or Hybrid,
northward and eastward, in Belgica, between the Seine and the Rhine;
westward, in Armorica, on the borders of the ocean; south-westward, in
Aquitania; centre-ward, amongst the peoplets established between the
Seine, the Loire, and the Saone. He was nearly always victorious, and then
at one time he pushed his victory to the bitter end, at another stopped at
the right moment, that it might not be compromised. When he experienced
reverses, he bore them without repining, and repaired them with
inexhaustible ability and courage. More than once, to revive the sinking
spirits of his men, he was rashly lavish of his person; and on one of
those occasions, at the raising of the siege of Gergovia, he was all but
taken by some Arvernian horsemen, and left his sword in their hands. It
was found a while afterwards, when the war was over, in a temple in which
the Gauls had hung it. Caesar’s soldiers would have torn it down and
returned it to him; but “let it be,” said he; “‘tis sanctified.” In good
or evil fortune, the hero of a triumph at Rome or a prisoner in the hands
of Mediterranean pirates, he was unrivalled in striking the imaginations
of men and growing great in their eyes. He did not confine himself to
conquering and subjecting the Gauls in Gaul; his ideas were ever
outstripping his deeds, and he knew how to make his power felt even where
he had made no attempt to establish it. Twice he crossed the Rhine to hurl
back the Germans beyond their river, and to strike to the very hearts of
their forests the terror of the Roman name (A. U. C. 699, 700). He
equipped two fleets, made two descents on Great Britain (A. U. C. 699,
700), several times defeated the Britons and their principal chieftain
Caswallon (Cassivellaunus), and set up across the channel, the first
landmarks of Roman conquest. He thus became more and more famous and
terrible, both in Gaul, whence he sometimes departed for a moment to go
and look after his political prospects in Italy, and in more distant
lands, where he was but an apparition.
But the greatest minds are far from foreseeing all the consequences of
their deeds, and all the perils proceeding from their successes. Caesar
was by nature neither violent nor cruel; but he did not trouble himself
about justice or humanity, and the success of his enterprises, no matter
by what means or at what price, was his sole law of conduct. He could
show, on occasion, moderation and mercy; but when he had to put down an
obstinate resistance, or when a long and arduous effort had irritated him,
he had no hesitation in employing atrocious severity and perfidious
promises. During his first campaign in Belgica, (A. U. C. 697 and 57
B.C.), two peoplets, the Nervians and the Aduaticans, had gallantly
struggled, with brief moments of success, against the Roman legions. The
Nervians were conquered and almost annihilated. Their last remnants,
huddled for refuge in the midst of their morasses, sent a deputation to
Caesar, to make submission, saying, “Of six hundred senators three only
are left, and of sixty thousand men that bore arms scarce five hundred
have escaped.” Caesar received them kindly, returned to them their lands,
and warned their neighbors to do them no harm. The Aduaticans, on the
contrary, defended them selves to the last extremity. Caesar, having slain
four thousand, had all that remained sold by auction; and fifty-six
thousand human beings, according to his own statement, passed as slaves
into the hands of their purchasers. Some years later another Belgian
peoplet, the Eburons, settled between the Meuse and the Rhine, rose and
inflicted great losses upon the Roman legions. Caesar put them beyond the
pale of military and human law, and had all the neighboring peoplets and
all the roving bands invited to come and pillage and destroy “that
accursed race,” promising to whoever would join in the work the friendship
of the Roman people. A little later still, some insurgents in the centre
of Gaul had concentrated in a place to the south-west, called Urellocdunum
(nowadays, it is said, Puy d’Issola, in the department of the Lot, between
Vayrac and Martel). After a long resistance they were obliged to
surrender, and Caesar had all the combatants’ hands cut off, and sent
them, thus mutilated, to live and rove throughout Gaul, as a spectacle to
all the country that was, or was to be, brought to submission. Nor were
the rigors of administration less than those of warfare. Caesar wanted a
great deal of money, not only to maintain satisfactorily his troops in
Gaul, but to defray the enormous expenses he was at in Italy, for the
purpose of enriching his partisans, or securing the favor of the Roman
people. It was with the produce of imposts and plunder in Gaul that he
undertook the reconstruction at Rome of the basilica of the Forum, the
site whereof, extending to the temple of Liberty, was valued, it is said,
at more than twenty million five hundred thousand francs. Cicero, who took
the direction of the works, wrote to his friend Atticus, “We shall make it
the most glorious thing in the world.” Cato was less satisfied; three
years previously despatches from Caesar had announced to the Senate his
victories over the Belgian and German insurgents. The senators had voted a
general thanksgiving, but, “Thanksgiving!” cried Cato, “rather expiation!
Pray the gods not to visit upon our armies the sin of a guilty general.
Give up Caesar to the Germans, and let the foreigner know that Rome does
not enjoin perjury, and rejects with horror the fruit thereof!”
Caesar had all the gifts, all the means of success and empire, that can be
possessed by man. He was great in politics and in war; as active and as
full of resource amidst the intrigues of the Forum as amidst the
combinations and surprises of the battle-field, equally able to please and
to terrify. He had a double pride, which gave him double confidence in
himself, the pride of a great noble and the pride of a great man. He was
fond of saying, “My aunt Julia is, maternally, the daughter of kings;
paternally, she is descended from the immortal gods; my family unites, to
the sacred character of kings who are the most powerful amongst men, the
awful majesty of the gods who have even kings in their keeping.” Thus, by
birth as well as nature, Caesar felt called to dominion; and at the same
time he was perfectly aware of the decadence of the Roman patriciate, and
of the necessity for being popular in order to become master. With this
double instinct he undertook the conquest of the Gauls as the surest means
of achieving conquest at Rome. But owing either to his own vices or to the
difficulties of the situation, he displayed in his conduct and his work in
Gaul so much violence and oppression, so much iniquity and cruel
indifference, that, even at that time, in the midst of Roman harshness,
pagan corruption, and Gallic or German barbarism, so great an infliction
of moral and material harm could not but be followed by a formidable
reaction. Where there are strength and ability, the want of foresight, the
fears, the weaknesses, the dissensions of men, whether individuals or
peoples, may be for a long while calculated upon; but it may be carried
too far. After six years’ struggling Caesar was victor; he had
successively dealt with all the different populations of Gaul; he had
passed through and subjected them all, either by his own strong arm, or
thanks to their rivalries. In the year of Rome 702 he was suddenly
informed in Italy, whither he had gone on his Roman business, that most of
the Gallic nations, united under a chieftain hitherto unknown, were rising
with one common impulse, and recommencing war.
The same perils and the same reverses, the same sufferings and the same
resentments, had stirred up amongst the Gauls, without distinction of race
and name, a sentiment to which they had hitherto been almost strangers,
the sentiment of Gallic nationality and the passion for independence, not
local any longer, but national. This sentiment was first manifested
amongst the populace and under obscure chieftains; a band of Carnutian
peasants (people of Chartrain) rushed upon the town of Genabum (Gies),
roused the inhabitants, and massacred the Italian traders and a Roman
knight, C. Fusius Cita, whom Caesar had commissioned to buy corn there. In
less than twenty-four hours the signal of insurrection against Rome was
borne across the country as far as the Arvernians, amongst whom conspiracy
had long ago been waiting and paving the way for insurrection. Amongst
them lived a young Gaul whose real name has remained unknown, and whom
history has called Vercingetorix, that is, chief over a hundred heads,
chief-in-general. He came of an ancient and powerful family of Arvernians,
and his father had been put to death in his own city for attempting to
make himself king. Caesar knew him, and had taken some pains to attach him
to himself. It does not appear that the Arvernian aristocrat had
absolutely declined the overtures; but when the hope of national
independence was aroused, Vercingetorix was its representative and chief.
He descended with his followers from the mountain, and seized Gergovia,
the capital of his nation. Thence his messengers spread over the centre,
north-west, and west of Gaul; the greater part of the peoplets and cities
of those regions pronounced from the first moment for insurrection; the
same sentiment was working amongst others more compromised with Rome, who
waited only for a breath of success to break out. Vercingetorix was
immediately invested with the chief command, and he made use of it with
all the passion engendered by patriotism and the possession of power; he
regulated the movement, demanded hostages, fixed the contingents of
troops, imposed taxes, inflicted summary punishment on the traitors, the
dastards, and the indifferent, and subjected those who turned a deaf ear
to the appeal of their common country to the same pains and the same
mutilations that Caesar inflicted on those who obstinately resisted the
Roman yoke.
At the news of this great movement Caesar immediately left Italy, and
returned to Gaul. He had one quality, rare even amongst the greatest men:
he remained cool amidst the very hottest alarms; necessity never hurried
him into precipitation, and he prepared for the struggle as if he were
always sure of arriving on the spot in time to sustain it. He was always
quick, but never hasty; and his activity and patience were equally
admirable and efficacious. Starting from Italy at the beginning of 702 A.
U. C., he passed two months in traversing within Gaul the Roman province
and its neighborhood, in visiting the points threatened by the
insurrection, and the openings by which he might get at it, in assembling
his troops, in confirming his wavering allies; and it was not before the
early part of March that he moved with his whole army to Agendicum (Sens),
the very centre of revolt, and started thence to push on the war with
vigor. In less than three months he had spread devastation throughout the
insurgent country; he had attacked and taken its principal cities,
Vellaunodunum (Trigueres), Genabum (Gien), Noviodunum (Sancerre), and
Avaricum (Bourges), delivering up everywhere country and city, lands and
inhabitants, to the rage of the Roman soldiery, maddened at having again
to conquer enemies so often conquered. To strike a decisive blow, he
penetrated at last to the heart of the country of the Arvernians, and laid
siege to Gergovia, their capital and the birthplace of Vercingetorix.
The firmness and the ability of the Gallic chieftain were not inferior to
such a struggle. He understood from the outset that he could not cope in
the open field with Caesar and the Roman legions; he therefore exerted
himself in getting together a body of cavalry numerous enough to harass
the Romans during their movements, to attack their scattered detachments,
to bear his orders swiftly to all quarters, and to keep up the excitement
amongst the different peoplets with some hope of success. His plan of
campaign, his repeated instructions, his passionate entreaties to the
confederates were to avoid any general action, to anticipate by their own
ravages those of the Romans, to destroy everywhere, at the approach of the
enemy, stores, springs, bridges, trees, and habitations: he wanted Caesar
to find in his front nothing but ruins and clouds of warriors relentless
in pursuing him without getting within reach. Frequently he succeeded in
obtaining from the people those painful sacrifices in the interest of the
common safety; as when the Biturigians (inhabitants of the district of
Bourges) burned in one day twenty of their towns or villages.
Vercingetorix adjured them also to burn Avaricum (Bourges), their capital;
but they refused, and the capture of Avaricum, though gallantly defended,
justified the urgency of Vercingetorix, seeing that it was an important
success for Caesar and a serious blow for the Gauls. Out of forty thousand
combatants within the walls, it is said, scarcely eight hundred escaped
the slaughter and succeeded in joining Vercingetorix, who had hovered
continually in the neighborhood without being able to offer the besieged
any effectual assistance. Nor was it only against the Romans that he had
to struggle; he had to fight amongst his own people, against rivalry,
mistrust, impatience, and discouragement; he was accused of desiring,
beyond everything, the mastery; he was even suspected of keeping up, with
the view of assuring his own future, secret relations with Caesar; he was
called upon to attack the enemy in front, and so bring the war to a
decisive issue. It is all very fine to be summoned by the popular voice to
accomplish a great and arduous work; but you cannot be, with impunity, the
most far-sighted, the most able, and the most in danger, because the most
devoted. Vercingetorix was bearing the burden of his superiority and
influence, until he should suffer the penalty and pay with his life for
his patriotism and his glory. He was approaching the happiest moment of
his enterprise and his destiny. In spite of reverses, in spite of Caesar’s
presence and activity, the insurrection was gaining ground and strength;
in the north, west, south-west, on the banks of the Rhine, the Seine, and
the Loire, the idea of Gallic nationality and the hope of independence
were spreading amongst people far removed from the centre of the movement,
and were bringing to Vercingetorix declarations of sympathy or material
re-enforcements. An event of more importance took place in the centre
itself. The AEduans, the most ancient allies and clients the Romans had in
Gaul, being divided amongst themselves, and feeling, besides, the national
instinct, ended, after much hesitation, by taking part in the uprising.
Caesar, for all his care, could neither prevent nor stifle this defection,
which threatened to become contagious, and detach from Rome the
neighboring peoplets that were still faithful. Caesar, engaged upon the
siege of Gergovia, encountered an obstinate resistance; whilst
Vercingetorix, encamped on the heights which surrounded his birthplace,
everywhere embarrassed, sometimes attacked, and incessantly threatened the
Romans. The eighth legion, drawn on one day to make an imprudent assault,
was repulsed, and lost forty-six of its bravest centurions. Caesar
determined to raise the siege, and to transfer the struggle to places
where the population could be more safely depended upon. It was the first
decisive check he had experienced in Gaul, the first Gallic town he had
been unable to take, the first retrograde movement he had executed in the
face of the Gallic insurgents and their chieftain. Vercingetorix could not
and would not restrain his joy; it seemed to him that the day had dawned
and an excellent chance arrived for attempting a decisive blow. He had
under his orders, it is said, eighty thousand men, mostly his own
Arvernians, and a numerous cavalry furnished by the different peoplets his
allies. He followed all Caesar’s movements in retreat towards the Saone,
and, on arriving at Longeau not far from Langres, near a little river
called the Vingeanne, he halted, pitched his camp about nine miles from
the Romans, and assembling the chiefs of his cavalry, said, “Now is the
hour of victory; the Romans are flying to their province and leaving Gaul;
that is enough for our liberty to-day, but too little for the peace and
repose of the future; for they will return with greater armies, and the
war will be without end. Attack we them amid the difficulties of their
march; if their foot support the cavalry, they will not be able to pursue
their route; if, as I fully trust, they leave their baggage, to provide
for their safety, they will lose both their honor and the supplies whereof
they have need. None of the enemy’s horse will dare to come forth from
their lines. To give ye courage and aid, I will order forth from the camp
and place in battle array all our troops, and they will strike the enemy
with terror.” The Gallic horsemen cried out that they must all bind
themselves by the most sacred of oaths, and swear that none of them would
come again under roof, or see again wife, or children, or parent, unless
he had twice pierced through the ranks of the enemy. And all did take this
oath, and so prepared for the attack. Vercingetorix knew not that Caesar,
with his usual foresight, had summoned and joined to his legions a great
number of horsemen from the German tribes roving over the banks of the
Rhine, with which he had taken care to keep up friendly relations. Not
only had he promised them pay, plunder, and lands, but, finding their
horses ill-trained, he had taken those of his officers, even those of the
Roman knights and veterans, and distributed them amongst his barbaric
auxiliaries. The action began between the cavalry on both sides; a portion
of the Gallic had taken up position on the road followed by the Roman
army, to bar its passage; but whilst the fighting at this point was
getting more and more obstinate, the German horse in Caesar’s service
gained a neighboring height, drove off the Gallic horse that were in
occupation, and pursued them as far as the river, near which was
Vercingetorix with his infantry. Disorder took place amongst this infantry
so unexpectedly attacked. Caesar launched his legions at them, and there
was a general panic and rout among the Gauls. Vercingetorix had great
trouble in rallying them, and he rallied them only to order a general
retreat, for which they clamored. Hurriedly striking his camp, he made for
Alesia (Semur in Auxois), a neighboring town and the capital of the
Mandubians, a peoplet in clientship to the AEduans. Caesar immediately
went in pursuit of the Gauls; killed, he says, three thousand, made
important prisoners, and encamped with his legions before Alesia the day
but one after Vercingetorix, with his fugitive army, had occupied the
place as well as the neighboring hills, and was hard at work intrenching
himself, probably without any clear idea as yet of what he should do to
continue the struggle.
Caesar at once took a resolution as unexpected as it was discreetly bold.
Here was the whole Gallic insurrection, chieftain and soldiery, united
together within or beneath the walls of a town of moderate extent. He
undertook to keep it there and destroy it on the spot, instead of having
to pursue it everywhere without ever being sure of getting at it. He had
at his disposal eleven legions, about fifty thousand strong, and five or
six thousand cavalry, of which two thousand were Germans. He placed them
round about Alesia and the Gallic camp, caused to be dug a circuit of deep
ditches, some filled with water, others bristling with palisades and
snares, and added, from interval to interval, twenty-three little forts,
occupied or guarded night and day by detachments. The result was a line of
investment about ten miles in extent. To the rear of the Roman camp, and
for defence against attacks from without, Caesar caused to be dug similar
intrenchments, which formed a line of circumvallation of about thirteen
miles. The troops had provisions and forage for thirty days. Vercingetorix
made frequent sallies to stop or destroy these works; but they were
repulsed, and only resulted in getting his army more closely cooped up
within the place. Eighty thousand Gallic insurgents were, as it were, in
prison, guarded by fifty thousand Roman soldiers. Vercingetorix was one of
those who persevere and act in the days of distress just as in the
spring-tide of their hopes. Before the works of the Romans were finished,
he assembled his horsemen, and ordered them to sally briskly from Alesia,
return each to his own land, and summon the whole population to arms. He
was obeyed; the Gallic horsemen made their way, during the night, through
the intervals left by the Romans’ still imperfect lines of investment, and
dispersed themselves amongst their various peoplets. Nearly everywhere
irritation and zeal were at their height. An assemblage of delegates met
at Bibracte (Autun), and fixed the amount of the contingent to be
furnished by each nation, and a point was assigned at which all those
contingents should unite for the purpose of marching together towards
Alesia, and attacking the besiegers. The total of the contingents thus
levied on forty-three Gallic peoplets amounted, according to Caesar, to
two hundred and eighty-three thousand men; and two hundred and forty
thousand men, it is said, did actually hurry up to the appointed place.
Mistrust of such enormous numbers has already been expressed by one who
has lived through the greatest European wars, and has heard the ablest
generals reduce to their real strength the largest armies. We find in M.
Thiers’ History of the Consulate and Empire, that at Austerlitz, on
the 2d of December, 1805, Napoleon had but from sixty-five to seventy
thousand men, and the combined Austrians and Russians but ninety thousand.
At Leipzig, the biggest of modern battles, when all the French forces on
the one side, and the Austrian, Prussian, Russian, and Swedish on the
other, were face to face on the 18th of October, 1813, they made all
together about five hundred thousand men. How can we believe, then, that
nineteen centuries ago, Gaul, so weakly populated and so slightly
organized, suddenly sent two hundred and forty thousand men to the
assistance of eighty thousand Gauls besieged in the little town of Alesia
by fifty or sixty thousand Romans? But whatever may be the case with the
figures, it is certain that at the very first moment the national impulse
answered the appeal of Vercingetorix, and that the besiegers of Alesia,
Caesar and his legions, found that they were themselves all at once
besieged in their intrenchments by a cloud of Gauls hurrying up to the
defence of their compatriots. The struggle was fierce, but short. Every
time that the fresh Gallic army attacked the besiegers, Vercingetorix and
the Gauls of Alesia sallied forth, and joined in the attack. Caesar and
his legions, on their side, at one time repulsed these double attacks, at
another themselves took the initiative, and assailed at one and the same
time the besieged and the auxiliaries Gaul had sent them. The feeling was
passionate on both sides: Roman pride was pitted against Gallic
patriotism. But in four or five days the strong organization, the
disciplined valor of the Roman legions, and the genius of Caesar carried
the day. The Gallic re-enforcements, beaten and slaughtered without mercy,
dispersed; and Vercingetorix and the besieged were crowded back within
their walls without hope of escape. We have two accounts of the last
moments of this great Gallic insurrection and its chief; one, written by
Caesar himself, plain, cold, and harsh as its author; the other, by two
later historians, who were neither statesmen nor warriors, Plutarch and
Dion Cassius, has more detail and more ornament, following either popular
tradition or the imagination of the writers. It may be well to give both.
“The day after the defeat,” says Caesar, “Vercingetorix convokes the
assembly, and shows that he did not undertake the war for his own personal
advantage, but for the general freedom. Since submission must be made to
fortune, he offers to satisfy the Romans either by instant death or by
being delivered to them alive. A deputation there anent is sent to Caesar,
who orders the arms to be given up and the chiefs brought to him. He seats
himself on his tribunal, in the front of his camp. The chiefs are brought,
Vercingetorix is delivered over; the arms are cast at Caesar’s feet.
Except the AEduans and Arvernians, whom Caesar kept for the purpose of
trying to regain their people, he had the prisoners distributed, head by
head, to his army as booty of war.”
The account of Dion Cassius is more varied and dramatic. “After the
defeat,” says he, “Vercingetorix, who was neither captured nor wounded,
might have fled; but, hoping that the friendship that had once bound him
to Caesar might gain him grace, he repaired to the Roman without previous
demand of peace by the voice of a herald, and appeared suddenly in his
presence, just as Caesar was seating himself upon his tribunal. The
apparition of the Gallic chieftain inspired no little terror, for he was
of lofty stature, and had an imposing appearance in arms. There was a deep
silence. Vercingetorix fell at Caesar’s feet, and made supplication by
touch of hand without speaking a word. The scene moved those present with
pity, remembering the ancient fortunes of Vercingetorix and comparing them
with his present disaster. Caesar, on the contrary, found proof of
criminality in the very memories relied upon for salvation, contrasted the
late struggle with the friendship appealed to by Vercingetorix, and so put
in a more hideous light the odiousness of his conduct. And thus, far from
being moved by his misfortunes at the moment, he threw him in chains
forthwith, and subsequently had him put to death, after keeping him to
adorn his triumph.”
Another historian, contemporary with Plutarch, Florus, attributes to
Vercingetorix, as he fell down and cast his arms at Caesar’s feet, these
words: “Bravest of men, thou hast conquered a brave man.” It is not
necessary to have faith in the rhetorical compliment, or to likewise
reject the mixture of pride and weakness attributed to Vercingetorix in
the account of Dion Cassius. It would not be the only example of a hero
seeking yet some chance of safety in the extremity of defeat, and abasing
himself for the sake of preserving at any price a life on which fortune
might still smile. However it be, Vercingetorix vanquished, dragged out,
after ten years’ imprisonment, to grace Caesar’s triumph, and put to death
immediately afterwards, lives as a glorious patriot in the pages of that
history in which Caesar appears, on this occasion, as a peevish conqueror
who took pleasure in crushing, with cruel disdain, the enemy he had been
at so much pains to conquer.
Alesia taken, and Vercingetorix a prisoner, Gaul was subdued. Caesar,
however, had in the following year (A. U. C. 703) a campaign to make to
subjugate some peoplets who tried to maintain their local independence. A
year afterwards, again, attempts at insurrection took place in Belgica,
and towards the mouth of the Loire; but they were easily repressed; they
had no national or formidable characteristics; Caesar and his lieutenants
willingly contented themselves with an apparent submission, and in the
year 705 A. U. C. the Roman legions, after nine years’ occupation in the
conquest of Gaul, were able to depart therefrom to Italy and the East for
a plunge into civil war.
CHAPTER V.
GAUL UNDER ROMAN DOMINION.
From the conquest of Gaul by Caesar, to the establishment there of the
Franks under Clovis, she remained for more than five centuries under Roman
dominion; first under the pagan, afterwards under the Christian empire. In
her primitive state of independence she had struggled for ten years
against the best armies and the greatest man of Rome; after five centuries
of Roman dominion she opposed no resistance to the invasion of the
barbarians, Germans, Goths, Alans, Burgundians, and Franks, who destroyed
bit by bit the Roman empire. In this humiliation and, one might say,
annihilation of a population so independent, so active, and so valiant at
its first appearance in history, is to be seen the characteristic of this
long epoch. It is worth while to learn and to understand how it was.
Gaul lived, during those five centuries, under very different rules and
rulers. They may be summed up under five names, which correspond with
governments very unequal in merit and defect, in good and evil wrought for
their epoch:
1st, the Caesars from Julius to Nero (from 49 B.C. to A.D. 68); 2d, the
Flavians, from Vespasian to Domitian (from A.D. 69 to 95); 3d, the
Antonines, from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius (from A.D. 96 to 180); 4th, the
imperial anarchy, or the thirty-nine emperors and the thirty-one tyrants,
from Commodus to Carinus and Numerian (from A.D. 180 to 284); 5th,
Diocletian (from A.D. 284 to 305).
Through all these governments, and in spite of their different results for
their contemporary subjects, the fact already pointed out as the general
and definitive characteristic of that long epoch, to wit, the moral and
social decadence of Gaul as well as of the Roman empire, never ceased to
continue and spread.
On quitting conquered Gaul to become master at Rome, Caesar neglected
nothing to assure his conquest and make it conducive to the establishment
of his empire. He formed, of all the Gallic districts that he had
subjugated, a special province which received the name of Gallia Comata
(Gaul of the long-hair), whilst the old province was called Gallia Toyata
(Gaul of the toga). Caesar caused to be enrolled amongst his troops a
multitude of Gauls, Belgians, Arvernians, and Aquitanians, of whose
bravery he had made proof. He even formed, almost entirely of Gauls, a
special legion called Alauda (lark), because it bore on the helmets a lark
with outspread wings, the symbol of wakefulness. At the same time he gave
in Gallia Comata, to the towns and families that declared for him, all
kinds of favors, the rights of Roman citizenship, the title of allies,
clients, and friends, even to the extent of the Julian name, a sign of the
most powerful Roman patronage. He had, however, in the old Roman province,
formidable enemies, especially the town of Marseilles, which declared
against him and for Pompey. Caesar had the place besieged by one of his
lieutenants, got possession of it, caused to be delivered over to him its
vessels and treasure, and left in it a garrison of two legions. He
established at Narbonne, Arles, Biterrce (Beziers) three colonies of
veteran legionaries devoted to his cause, and near Antipolis (Antibes) a
maritime colony called Forum Julii, nowadays Frejus, of which he proposed
to make a rival to Marseilles. Much money was necessary to meet the
expenses of such patronage and to satisfy the troops, old and new, of the
conqueror of Gaul and Rome. Now there was at Rome an ancient treasure,
founded more than four centuries previously by the Dictator Camillus, when
he had delivered Rome from the Gauls—a treasure reserved for the
expenses of Gallic wars, and guarded with religious respect as sacred
money. In the midst of all discords and disorders at Rome, none had
touched it. After his return from Gaul, Caesar one day ascended the
Capitol with his soldiers, and finding, in the temple of Saturn, the door
closed of the place where the treasure was deposited, ordered it to be
forced. L. Metellus, tribune of the people, made strong opposition,
conjuring Caesar not to bring on the Republic the penalty of such
sacrilege: but “the Republic has nothing to fear,” said Caesar; “I have
released it from its oaths by subjugating Gaul. There are no more Gauls.”
He caused the door to be forced, and the treasure was abstracted and
distributed to the troops, Gallic and Roman. Whatever Caesar may have
said, there were still Gauls, for at the same time that he was
distributing to such of them as he had turned into his own soldiers the
money reserved for the expense of fighting them, he was imposing upon
Gallia Comata, under the name of stipendium (soldier’s pay), a levy of
forty millions of sesterces—a considerable amount for a devastated
country which, according to Plutarch, did not contain at that time more
than three millions of inhabitants, and almost equal to that of the levies
paid by the rest of the Roman provinces.
After Caesar, Augustus, left sole master of the Roman world, assumed in
Gaul, as elsewhere, the part of pacificator, repairer, conservator, and
organizer, whilst taking care, with all his moderation, to remain always
the master. He divided the provinces into imperial and senatorial,
reserving to himself the entire government of the former, and leaving the
latter under the authority of the senate. Gaul “of the long hair,” all
that Caesar had conquered, was imperial province. Augustus divided it into
three provinces, Lugdunensian (Lyonese), Belgian, and Aquitanian. He
recognized therein sixty nations or distinct cityships which continued to
have themselves the government of their own affairs, according to their
traditions and manners, whilst conforming to the general laws of the
empire, and abiding under the supervision of imperial governors, charged
with maintaining everywhere, in the words of Pliny the Younger, “the
majesty of Roman peace.” Luydunum (Lyons), which had been up to that time
of small importance and obscure, became the great town, the favorite
cityship and ordinary abiding-place of the emperors when they visited
Gaul. After having held at Narbonne (27 B.C.) a meeting of representatives
from the different Gallic nations, Augustus went several times to Lyons,
and even lived there, as it appears, a pretty long while, to superintend,
no doubt, from thence, and to get into working order the new government of
Gaul. After the departure of Augustus, his adopted son Drusus, who had
just fulfilled, in Belgica and on the Rhine, a mission at the same time
military and administrative, called together at Lyons delegates from the
sixty Gallic cityships, to take part (B.C.12 or 10) in the inauguration of
a magnificent monument raised, at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone,
in honor of Rome and Augustus as the tutelary deities of Gaul. In the
middle of a vast enclosure was placed a huge altar of white marble, on
which were engraved the names of the sixty cityships “of the long hair.” A
colossal statue of the Gauls and sixty statues of the Gallic cityships
occupied the enclosure. Two columns of granite, twenty-five feet high,
stood close by the altar, and were surmounted by two colossal Victories,
in white marble, ten feet high. Solemn festivals, gymnastic games, and
oratorical and literary exercitations accompanied the inauguration; and
during the ceremony it was announced, amidst popular acclamation, that a
son had just been born to Drusus at Lyons itself, in the palace of the
emperor, where the child’s mother, Antonia, daughter of Marc Antony and
Octavia (sister of Augustus), had been staying for some months. This child
was one day to be the emperor Claudius.
The administrative energy of Augustus was not confined to the erection of
monuments and to festivals; he applied himself to the development in Gaul
of the material elements of civilization and social order. His most
intimate and able adviser, Agrippa, being settled at Lyons as governor of
the Gauls, caused to be opened four great roads, starting from a milestone
placed in the middle of the Lyonnese forum, and going, one centrewards to
Saintes and the ocean, another southwards to Narbonne and the Pyrenees,
the third north-westwards and towards the Channel by Amiens and Boulogne,
and the fourth north-westwards and towards the Rhine. Agrippa founded
several colonies, amongst others Cologne, which bore his name; and he
admitted to Gallic territory bands of Germans who asked for an
establishment there. Thanks to public security, Romans became proprietors
in the Gallic provinces and introduced to them Italian cultivation. The
Gallic chieftains, on their side, began to cultivate lands which had
become their personal property. Towns were built or grew apace and became
encircled by ramparts, under protection of which the populations came and
placed themselves. The most learned and attentive observer of nature and
Roman society, Pliny the Elder, attests that under Augustus Gallic
agriculture and industry made vast progress.
But side by side with this work in the cause of civilization and
organization, Augustus and his Roman agents were pursuing a work of quite
a contrary tendency. They labored to extirpate from Gaul the spirit of
nationality, independence, and freedom; they took every pains to efface
everywhere Gallic memories and sentiments. Gallic towns were losing their
old and receiving Roman names: Augustonemetum, Augusta, and Augustodunum
took the place of Gergovia, Noviodunum, and Bibracte. The national Gallic
religion, which was Druidism, was attacked as well as the Gallic
fatherland, with the same design and by the same means; at one time
Augustus prohibited this worship amongst the Gauls converted into Roman
citizens, as being contrary to Roman belief; at another Roman Paganism and
Gallic Druidism were fused together in the same temples and at the same
altars, as if to fuse them in the same common indifference; Roman and
Gallic names became applied to the same religious personification of such
and such a fact or such and such an idea; Mars and Camul were equally the
god of war; Belen and Apollo the god of light and healing; Diana and
Arduinna the goddess of the chase. Everywhere, whether it was a question
of the terrestrial fatherland or of religious faith, the old moral
machinery of the Gauls was broken up or condemned to rust, and no new
moral machinery was allowed to replace it; it was everywhere Roman and
imperial authority that was substituted for the free, national action of
the Gauls.
It is incredible that this hostility on the part of the powers that be
towards moral sentiments, and this absence of freedom, should not have
gravely compromised the material interest of the Gallic population. Public
administration, however extensive its organization and energy, if it be
not under the superintendence and restraint of public freedom and
morality, soon falls into monstrous abuses, which itself is either
ignorant of or wittingly suffers. Examples of this evil, inherent in
despotism, abound even under the intelligent and watchful sway of
Augustus. Here is a case in point. He had appointed as procurator, that
is, financial commissioner, in “long-haired” Gaul, a native who, having
been originally a slave and afterwards set free by Julius Caesar, had
taken the Roman name of Licinius. This man gave himself up, during his
administration, to a course of the most shameless extortion. The taxes
were collected monthly; and so, taking advantage of the change of name
which flattery had caused in the two months of July and August, sacred to
Julius Caesar and Augustus respectively, he made his year consist of
fourteen months, so that he might squeeze out fourteen contributions
instead of twelve. “December,” said he, “is surely, as its name indicates,
the tenth month of the year,” and he added thereto, in honor of the
emperor, two others which he called the eleventh and twelfth. During one
of the trips which Augustus made into Gaul, strong complaints were made
against Licinius, and his robberies were denounced to the emperor.
Augustus dared not support him, and seemed upon the point of deciding to
bring him to justice, when Licinius conducted him to the place where was
deposited all the treasure he had extorted, and, “See, my lord,” said he,
“what I have laid up for thee and for the Roman people, for fear lest the
Gauls possessing so much gold should employ it against you both; for thee
I have kept it, and to thee I deliver it.” (Thierry, Histoire des
Gaulois, t. iii. p. 295; Clerjon, Histoire de Lyon, t. i. p.
178-180.) Augustus accepted the treasure, and Licinius remained
unpunished. In the case of financial abuses or other acts, absolute power
seldom resists such temptations.
We may hear it said, and we may read in the writings of certain modern
philosophers and scholars, that the victorious despotism of the Roman
empire was a necessary and salutary step in advance, and that it brought
about the unity and enfranchisement of the human race. Believe it not.
There is mingled good and evil in all the events and governments of this
world, and good often arises side by side with or in the wake of evil, but
it is never from the evil that the good comes; injustice and tyranny have
never produced good fruits. Be assured that whenever they have the
dominion, whenever the moral rights and personal liberties of men are
trodden under foot by material force, be it barbaric or be it scientific,
there can result only prolonged evils and deplorable obstacles to the
return of moral right and moral force, which, God be thanked, can never he
obliterated from the nature and the history of man. The despotic imperial
administration upheld for a long while the Roman empire, and not without
renown; but it corrupted, enervated, and impoverished the Roman
populations, and left them, after five centuries, as incapable of
defending themselves as they were of governing.
Tiberius pursued in Gaul, but with less energy and less care for the
provincial administration, the pacific and moderate policy of Augustus. He
had to extinguish in Belgica, and even in the Lyonnese province, two
insurrections kindled by the sparks that remained of national and Druidic
spirit. He repressed them effectually, and without any violent display of
vengeance. He made a trip to Gaul, took measures, quite insufficient,
however, for defending the Rhine frontier from the incessantly repeated
incursions of the Germans, and hastened back to Italy to resume the course
of suspicion, perfidy, and cruelty which he pursued against the republican
pride and moral dignity remaining amongst a few remnants of the Roman
senate. He was succeeded by Germanicus’ unworthy son, Caligula. After a
few days of hypocrisy on the part of the emperor, and credulous hope on
that of the people, they found a madman let loose to take the place of an
unfathomable and gloomy tyrant. Caligula was much taken up with Gaul,
plundering it and giving free rein in it to his frenzies, by turns
disgusting or ridiculous. In a short and fruitless campaign on the banks
of the Rhine, he had made too few prisoners for the pomp of a triumph; he
therefore took some Gauls, the tallest he could find, of triumphal size,
as he said, put them in German clothes, made them learn some Teutonic
words, and sent them away to Rome to await in prison his return and his
ovation. Lyons, where he staid some time, was the scene of his extortions
and strangest freaks. He was playing at dice one day with some of his
courtiers, and lost; he rose, sent for the tax-list of the province,
marked down for death and confiscation some of those who were most highly
rated, and said to the company, “You people, you play for a few drachmas;
but as for me, I have just won by a single throw one hundred and fifty
millions.” At the rumor of a plot hatched against him in Italy, by some
Roman nobles, he sent for and sold, publicly, their furniture, jewels, and
slaves. As the sale was a success, he extended it to the old furniture of
his own palaces in Italy: “I wish to fit out the Gauls,” said he; “it is a
mark of friendship I owe to the brave performed the part Roman people.” He
himself, at these sales, performed the part of salesman and auctioneer,
telling the history of each article to enhance the price. “This belonged
to my father, Germanicus; that comes to me from Agrippa; this vase is
Egyptian, it was Antony’s, Augustus took it at the battle of Actium.” The
imperial sales were succeeded by literary games, at which the losers had
to pay the expenses of the prizes, and celebrate, in verse or prose, the
praises of the winners; and if their compositions were pronounced bad,
they were bound to wipe them out with a sponge or even with their tongues,
unless they preferred to be beaten with a rod or soused in the Rhone. One
day, when Caligula, in the character of Jupiter, was seated at his
tribunal and delivering oracles in the middle of the public thoroughfare,
a man of the people remained motionless in front of him, with eyes of
astonishment fixed upon him. “What seem I to thee?” asked the emperor,
flattered, no doubt, by this attention of the mob. “A great monstrosity,”
answered the Gaul. And that, at the end of about four years, was the
universal cry: and against a mad emperor the only resource of the Roman
world was at that time assassination. The captain of Caligula’s guards rid
Rome and the provinces of him.
He did just one sensible and useful thing during the whole of his stay in
Gaul: he had a light-house constructed to illumine the passage between
Gaul and Great Britain. Some traces of it, they say, have been discovered.
His successor, Claudius, brother of the great Germanicus, and married to
his own niece, the second Agrippina, was, as has been already stated, born
at Lyons, at the very moment when his father, Drusus, was celebrating
there the erection of an altar to Augustus. During his whole reign he
showed to the city of his birth the most lively good-will, and the
constant aim as well as principal result of this good-will was to render
the city of Lyons more and more Roman by effacing all Gallic
characteristics and memories. She was endowed with Roman rights,
monuments, and names, the most important or the most ostentatious; she
became the colony supereminently, the great municipal town of the Gauls,
the Claudian town; but she lost what had remained of her old municipal
government, that is of her administrative and commercial independence. Nor
was she the only one in Gaul to experience the good-will of Claudius. This
emperor, the mark of scorn from his infancy, whom his mother, Antonia,
called “a shadow of a man, an unfinished sketch of nature’s drawing,” and
of whom his grand-uncle, Augustus, used to say, “We shall be forever in
doubt, without any certainty of knowing whether he be or be not equal to
public duties,” Claudius, the most feeble indeed of the Caesars, in body,
mind, and character, was nevertheless he who had intermittent glimpses of
the most elevated ideas and the most righteous sentiments, and who strove
the most sincerely to make them take the form of deeds. He undertook to
assure to all free men of “long-haired” Gaul the same Roman privileges
that were enjoyed by the inhabitants of Lyons; and amongst others, that of
entering the senate of Rome and holding the great public offices. He made
a formal proposal to that effect to the senate, and succeeded, not without
difficulty, in getting it adopted. The speech that he delivered on this
occasion has been to a great extent preserved to us, not only in the
summary given by Tacitus, but also in an inscription on a bronze tablet,
which split into many fragments at the time of the destruction of the
building in which it was placed. The two principal fragments were
discovered at Lyons, in 1528, and they are now deposited in the Museum of
that city. They fully confirm the most equitable, and, it may be readily
allowed, the most liberal act of policy that emanated from the earlier
Roman emperors. “Claudius had taken it into his head,” says Seneca, “to
see all Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, and Britons clad in the toga.” But at
the same time he took great care to spread everywhere the Latin tongue,
and to make it take the place of the different national idioms. A Roman
citizen, originally of Asia Minor, and sent on a deputation to Rome by his
compatriots, could not answer in Latin the emperor’s questions. Claudius
took away his privileges, saying, “He is no Roman citizen who is ignorant
of the language of Rome.”
Claudius, however, was neither liberal nor humane towards a notable
portion of the Gallic populations, to wit, the Druids. During his stay in
Gaul he proscribed them and persecuted them without intermission;
forbidding, under pain of death, their form of worship and every exterior
sign of their ceremonies. He drove them away and pursued them even into
Great Britain, whither he conducted, A.D. 43, a military expedition,
almost the only one of his reign, save the continued struggle of his
lieutenants on the Rhine against the Germans. It was evidently amongst the
corporation of Druids and under the influence of religious creeds and
traditions, that there was still pursued and harbored some of the old
Gallic spirit, some passion for national independence, and some hatred of
the Roman yoke. In proportion as Claudius had been popular in Gaul did his
adopted son and successor, Nero, quickly become hated. There is nothing to
show that he even went thither, either on the business of government or to
obtain the momentary access of favor always excited in the mob by the
presence and prestige of power. It was towards Greece and the East that a
tendency was shown in the tastes and trips of Nero, imperial poet,
musician, and actor. L. Verus, one of the military commandants in Belgica,
had conceived a project of a canal to unite the Moselle to the Saone, and
so the Mediterranean to the ocean; but intrigues in the province and the
palace prevented its execution, and in the place of public works useful to
Gaul, Nero caused a new census to be made of the population whom he
required to squeeze to pay for his extravagance. It was in his reign, as
is well known, that a fierce fire consumed a great part of Rome and her
monuments. The majority of historians accuse Nero of having himself been
the cause of it; but at any rate he looked on with cynical indifference,
as if amused at so grand a spectacle, and taking pleasure in comparing it
to the burning of Troy. He did more: he profited by it so far as to have
built for himself, free of expense, that magnificent palace called “The
Palace of Gold,” of which he said, when he saw it completed, “At last I am
going to be housed as a man should be.” Five years before the burning of
Rome, Lyons had been a prey to a similar scourge, and Seneca wrote to his
friend Lucilius, “Lugdunum, which was one of the show-places of Gaul, is
sought for in vain to-day; a single night sufficed for the disappearance
of a vast city; it perished in less time than I take to tell the tale.”
Nero gave upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars towards the
reconstruction of Lyons, a gift that gained him the city’s gratitude,
which was manifested, it is said, when his fall became imminent. It was,
however, J. Vindex, a Gaul of Vienne, governor of the Lyonnese province,
who was the instigator of the insurrection which was fatal to Nero, and
which put Galba in his place.
When Nero was dead there was no other Caesar, no naturally indicated
successor to the empire. The influence of the name of Caesar had spent
itself in the crimes, madnesses, and incapacity of his descendants. Then
began a general search for emperors; and the ambition to be created spread
abroad amongst the men of note in the Roman world. During the eighteen
months that followed the death of Nero, three pretenders—Galba,
Otho, and Vitellius—ran this formidable risk. Galba was a worthy old
Roman senator, who frankly said, “If the vast body of the empire could be
kept standing in equilibrium without a head, I were worthy of the chief
place in the state.” Otho and Vitellius were two epicures, both indolent
and debauched, the former after an elegant, and the latter after a beastly
fashion. Galba was raised to the purple by the Lyonnese and Narbonnese
provinces, Vitellius by the legions cantoned in the Belgic province: to
such an extent did Gaul already influence the destinies of Rome. All three
met disgrace and death within the space of eighteen months; and the search
for an emperor took a turn towards the East, where the command was held by
Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus, of Rieti in the duchy of Spoleto), a
general sprung from a humble Italian family, who had won great military
distinction, and who, having been proclaimed first at Alexandria, in
Judea, and at Antioch, did not arrive until many months afterwards at
Rome, where he commenced the twenty-six years’ reign of the Flavian
family.
Neither Vespasian nor his sons, Titus and Domitian, visited Gaul, as their
predecessors had. Domitian alone put in a short appearance. The eastern
provinces of the empire and the wars on the frontier of the Danube,
towards which the invasions of the Germans were at that time beginning to
be directed, absorbed the attention of the new emperors. Gaul was far,
however, from remaining docile and peaceful at this epoch. At the vacancy
that occurred after Nero and amid the claims of various pretenders, the
authority of the Roman name and the pressure of the imperial power
diminished rapidly; and the memory and desire of independence were
reawakened. In Belgica the German peoplets, who had been allowed to settle
on the left bank of the Rhine, were very imperfectly subdued, and kept up
close communication with the independent peoplets of the right bank. The
eight Roman legions cantoned in that province were themselves much
changed; many barbarians had been enlisted amongst them, and did gallant
service; but they were indifferent, and always ready for a new master and
a new country. There were not wanting symptoms, soon followed by
opportunities for action, of this change in sentiment and fact. In the
very centre of Gaul, between the Loire and the Allier, a peasant, who has
kept in history his Gallic name of Marie or Maricus, formed a band, and
scoured the country, proclaiming national independence. He was arrested by
the local authorities and handed over to Vitellius, who had him thrown to
the beasts. But in the northern part of Belgica, towards the mouths of the
Rhine, where a Batavian peoplet lived, a man of note amongst his
compatriots and in the service of the Romans, amongst whom he had received
the name of Claudius Civilis, embraced first secretly, and afterwards
openly, the cause of insurrection. He had vengeance to take for Nero’s
treatment, who had caused his brother, Julius Paulus, to be beheaded, and
himself to be put in prison, whence he had been liberated by Galba. He
made a vow to let his hair grow until he was revenged. He had but one eye,
and gloried in the fact, saying that it had been so with Hannibal and with
Sertorius, and that his highest aspiration was to be like them. He
pronounced first for Vitellius against Otho, then for Vespasian against
Vitellius, and then for the complete independence of his nation against
Vespasian. He soon had, amongst the Germans on the two banks of the Rhine
and amongst the Gauls themselves, secret or declared allies. He was joined
by a young Gaul from the district of Langres, Julius Sabinus, who boasted
that, during the great war with the Gauls, his great-grandmother had taken
the fancy of Julius Caesar, and that he owed his name to him. News had
just reached Gaul of the burning down, for the second time, of the Capitol
during the disturbances at Rome on the death of Nero. The Druids came
forth from the retreats where they had hidden since Claudius’
proscription, and reappeared in the towns and country-places, proclaiming
that “the Roman empire was at an end, that the Gallic empire was
beginning, and that the day had come when the possession of all the world
should pass into the hands of the Transalpine nations.” The insurgents
rose in the name of the Gallic empire, and Julius Sabinus assumed the
title of Caesar. War commenced. Confusion, hesitation, and actual
desertion reached the colonies and extended positively to the Roman
legions. Several towns, even Troves and Cologne, submitted or fell into
the hands of the insurgents. Several legions, yielding to bribery,
persuasion, or intimidation, went over to them, some with a bad grace,
others with the blood of their officers on their hands. The gravity of the
situation was not misunderstood at Rome. Petilius Cerealis, a commander of
renown for his campaigns on the Rhine, was sent off to Belgica with seven
fresh legions. He was as skilful in negotiation and persuasion as he was
in battle. The struggle that ensued was fierce, but brief; and nearly all
the towns and legions that had been guilty of defection returned to their
Roman allegiance. Civilis, though not more than half vanquished, himself
asked leave to surrender. The Batavian might, as was said at the time,
have inundated the country, and drowned the Roman armies. Vespasian,
therefore, not being inclined to drive men or matters to extremity, gave
Civilis leave to go into retirement and live in peace amongst the marshes
of his own land. The Gallic chieftains alone, the projectors of a Gallic
empire, were rigorously pursued and chastised. There was especially one,
Julius Sabinus, the pretended descendant of Julius Caesar, whose capture
was heartily desired. After the ruin of his hopes he took refuge in some
vaults connected with one of his country houses. The way in was known only
to two devoted freedmen of his, who set fire to the buildings, and spread
a report that Sabinus had poisoned himself, and that his dead body had
been devoured by the flames. He had a wife, a young Gaul named Eponina,
who was in frantic despair at the rumor; but he had her informed, by the
mouth of one of his freedmen, of his place of concealment, begging her at
the same time to keep up a show of widowhood and mourning, in order to
confirm the report already in circulation. “Well did she play her part,”
to use Plutarch’s expression, “in her tragedy of woe.” She went at night
to visit her husband in his retreat, and departed at break of day; and at
last would not depart at all. At the end of seven months, hearing great
talk of Vespasian’s clemency, she set out for Rome, taking with her her
husband, disguised as a slave, with shaven head and a dress that made him
unrecognizable. But the friends who were in their confidence advised them
not to risk as yet the chance of imperial clemency, and to return to their
secret asylum. There they lived for nine years, during which “as a lioness
in her den, neither more nor less,” says Plutarch, “Eponina gave birth to
two young whelps, and suckled them herself at her teat.” At last they were
discovered and brought before Vespasian at Rome: “Caesar,” said Eponina,
showing him her children, “I conceived them and suckled them in a tomb,
that there might be more of us to ask thy mercy.”
But Vespasian was merciful only from prudence, and not by nature or from
magnanimity; and he sent Sabinus to execution. Eponina asked that she
might die with her husband, saying, “Caesar, do me this grace; for I have
lived more happily beneath the earth and in the darkness than thou in the
splendor of thy empire.” Vespasian fulfilled her desire by sending her
also to execution; and Plutarch, their contemporary, undoubtedly expressed
the general feeling, when he ended his tale with the words, “In all the
long reign of this emperor there was no deed so cruel or so piteous to
see; and he was afterwards punished for it, for in a short time all his
posterity was extinct.”
In fact the Caesars and the Flavians met the same fate; the two lines
began and ended alike; the former with Augustus and Nero, the latter with
Vespasian and Domitian; first a despot, able, cold, and as capable of
cruelty as of moderation, then a tyrant, atrocious and detested. And both
were extinguished without a descendant. Then a rare piece of good fortune
befell the Roman world. Domitian, two years before he was assassinated by
some of his servants whom he was about to put to death, grew suspicious of
an aged and honorable senator, Cocceius Nerva, who had been twice consul,
and whom he had sent into exile, first to Tarenturn, and then in Gaul,
preparatory, probably, to a worse fate. To this victim of proscription
application was made by the conspirators who had just got rid of Domitian,
and had to get another emperor. Nerva accepted, but not without
hesitation, for he was sixty-four years old; he had witnessed the violent
death of six emperors, and his grandfather, a celebrated jurist, and for a
long while a friend of Tiberius, had killed himself, it is said, for grief
at the iniquitous and cruel government of his friend. The short reign of
Nerva was a wise, a just, and a humane, but a sad one, not for the people,
but for himself. He maintained peace and order, recalled exiles,
suppressed informers, re-established respect for laws and morals, turned a
deaf ear to self-interested suggestions of vengeance, spoliation, and
injustice, proceeding at one time from those who had made him emperor, at
another from the Praetorian soldiers and the Roman mob, who regretted
Domitian just as they had Nero. But Nerva did not succeed in putting a
stop to mob-violence or murders prompted by cupidity or hatred. Finding
his authority insulted and his life threatened, he formed a resolution
which has been described and explained by a learned and temperate
historian of the last century, Lenain de Tillemont (Histoire des
Empereurs, &c., t. ii. p. 59), with so much justice and precision
that it is a pleasure to quote his own words. “Seeing,” says he, “that his
age was despised, and that the empire required some one who combined
strength of mind and body, Nerva, being free from that blindness which
prevents one from discussing and measuring one’s own powers, and from that
thirst for dominion which often prevails over even those who are nearest
to the grave, resolved to take a partner in the sovereign power, and
showed his wisdom by making choice of Trajan.” By this choice, indeed,
Nerva commenced and inaugurated the finest period of the Roman empire, the
period that contemporaries entitled the golden age, and that history has
named the age of the Antonines. It is desirable to become acquainted with
the real character of this period, for to it belong the two greatest
historical events—the dissolution of ancient pagan, and the birth of
modern Christian society.
Five notable sovereigns, Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and
Marcus Aurelius swayed the Roman empire during this period (A.D. 96-150).
What Nerva was has just been described; and he made no mistake in adopting
Trajan as his successor. Trajan, unconnected by origin, as Nerva also had
been, with old Rome, was born in Spain, near Seville, and by military
service in the East had made his first steps towards fortune and renown.
He was essentially a soldier—a moral and a modest soldier; a friend
to justice and the public weal; grand in what he undertook for the empire
he governed; simple and modest on his own score; respectful towards the
civil authority and the laws; untiring and equitable in the work of
provincial administration; without any philosophical system or
pretensions; full of energy and boldness, honesty and good sense. He
stoutly defended the empire against the Germans on the banks of the
Danube, won for it the province of Dacia, and, being more taken up with
the East than the West, made many Asiatic conquests, of which his
successor, Hadrian, lost no time in abandoning, wisely no doubt, a
portion. Hadrian, adopted by Trajan, and a Spaniard too, was
intellectually superior and morally very inferior to him. He was full of
ambition, vanity, invention, and restlessness; he was sceptical in thought
and cynical in manners; and he was overflowing with political,
philosophical, and literary views and pretensions. He passed the
twenty-one years of his reign chiefly in travelling about the empire, in
Asia, Africa, Greece, Spain, Gaul, and Great Britain, opening roads,
raising ramparts and monuments, founding schools of learning and museums,
and encouraging among the provinces, as well as at Rome, the march of
administration, legislation, and intellect, more for his own pleasure and
his own glorification than in the interest of his country and of society.
At the close of this active career, when he was ill and felt that he was
dying, he did the best deed of his life. He had proved, in the discharge
of high offices, the calm and clear-sighted wisdom of Titus Antoninus, a
Gaul, whose family came originally from Nimes; he had seen him one day
coming to the senate and respectfully supporting the tottering steps of
his aged father (or father-in-law, according to Aurelius Victor); and he
adopted him as his successor. Antoninus Pius, as a civilian, was just what
Trajan had been as a warrior—moral and modest; just and frugal;
attentive to the public weal; gentle towards individuals; full of respect
for laws and rights; scrupulous in justifying his deeds before the senate
and making them known to the populations by carefully posted edicts; and
more anxious to do no wrong or harm to anybody than to gain lustre from
brilliant or popular deeds. “He surpasses all men in goodness,” said his
contemporaries, and he conferred on the empire the best of gifts, for he
gave it Marcus Aurelius for its ruler.
It has been said that Marcus Aurelius was philosophy enthroned. Without
any desire to contest or detract from that compliment, let it be added
that he was conscientiousness enthroned. It is his grand and original
characteristic that he governed the Roman empire and himself with a
constant moral solicitude, ever anxious to realize that ideal of personal
virtue and general justice which he had conceived, and to which he
aspired. His conception, indeed, of virtue and justice was incomplete, and
even false in certain cases; and in more than one instance, such as the
persecution of the Christians, he committed acts quite contrary to the
moral law which he intended to put in practice towards all men; but his
respect for the moral law was profound, and his intention to shape his
acts according to it, serious and sincere. Let us cull a few phrases from
that collection of his private thoughts, which he entitled For Self,
and which is really the most faithful picture man ever left of himself and
the pains he took with himself. “There is,” says he, “relationship between
all beings endowed with reason. The world is like a superior city within
which the other cities are but families. . . . I have conceived the idea
of a government founded on laws of general and equal application. Beware
lest thou Caesarze thyself, for it is what happens only too often. Keep
thyself simple, good, unaltered, worthy, grave, a friend to justice,
pious, kindly disposed, courageous enough for any duty. . . . Reverence
the gods, preserve mankind. Life is short; the only possible good fruit of
our earthly existence is holiness of intention and deeds that tend to the
common weal. . . . My soul, be thou covered with shame! Thy life is well
nigh gone, and thou hast not yet learned how to live.” Amongst men who
have ruled great states, it is not easy to mention more than two, Marcus
Aurelius and Saint Louis, who have been thus passionately concerned about
the moral condition of their souls and the moral conduct of their lives.
The mind of Marcus Aurelius was superior to that of Saint Louis; but Saint
Louis was a Christian, and his moral ideal was more pure, more complete,
more satisfying, and more strengthening for the soul than the
philosophical ideal of Marcus Aurelius. And so Saint Louis was serene and
confident as to his fate and that of the human race, whilst Marcus
Aurelius was disquieted and sad— sad for himself and also for
humanity, for his country and for his times: “O, my sole,” was his cry,
“wherefore art thou troubled, and why am I so vexed?”
We are here brought closer to the fact which has already been
foreshadowed, and which characterizes the moral and social condition of
the Roman world at this period. It would be a great error to take the five
emperors just spoken of—Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and
Marcus Aurelius—as representatives of the society amidst which they
lived, and as giving in a certain degree the measure of its enlightenment,
its morality, its prosperity, its disposition, and condition in general.
Those five princes were not only picked men, superior in mind and
character to the majority of their contemporaries, but they were men
almost isolated in their generation; in them there was a resumption of all
that had been acquired by Greek and Roman antiquity of enlightenment and
virtue, practical wisdom and philosophical morality: they were the heirs
and the survivors of the great minds and the great politicians of Athens
and Rome, of the Areopagus and the Senate. They were not in intellectual
and moral harmony with the society they governed, and their action upon it
served hardly to preserve it partially and temporarily from the evils to
which it was committed by its own vices and to break its fall. When they
were thoughtful and modest as Marcus Aurelius was, they were gloomy and
disposed to discouragement, for they had a secret foreboding of the
uselessness of their efforts.
Nor was their gloom groundless: in spite of their honest plans and of
brilliant appearances, the degradation, material as well as moral, of
Roman society went on increasing. The wars, the luxury, the dilapidations,
and the disturbances of the empire always raised its expenses much above
its receipts. The rough miserliness of Vespasian and the wise economy of
Antoninus Pius were far from sufficient to restore the balance; the
aggravation of imposts was incessant; and the population, especially the
agricultural population, dwindled away more and more, in Italy itself, the
centre of the state. This evil disquieted the emperors, when they were
neither idiots nor madmen; Claudius, Vespasian, Nerva, and Trajan labored
to supply a remedy, and Augustus himself had set them the example. They
established in Italy colonies of veterans to whom they assigned lands;
they made gifts thereof to indigent Roman citizens; they attracted by the
title of senator rich citizens from the provinces, and when they had once
installed them as landholders in Italy, they did not permit them to depart
without authorization. Trajan decreed that every candidate for the Roman
magistracies should be bound to have a third of his fortune invested in
Italian land, “in order,” says Pliny the Younger, “that those who sought
the public dignities should regard Rome and Italy not as an inn to put up
at in travelling, but as their home.” And Pliny the Elder, going as a
philosophical observer to the very root of the evil, says, in his pompous
manner, “In former times our generals tilled their fields with their own
hands; the earth, we may suppose, opened graciously beneath a plough
crowned with laurels and held by triumphal hands, maybe because those
great men gave to tillage the same care that they gave to war, and that
they sowed seed with the same attention with which they pitched a camp; or
maybe, also, because everything fructifies best in honorable hands,
because everything is done with the most scrupulous exactitude. . . .
Nowadays these same fields are given over to slaves in chains, to
malefactors who are condemned to penal servitude, and on whose brow there
is a brand. Earth is not deaf to our prayers; we give her the name of
mother; culture is what we call the pains we bestow on her . . . but can
we be surprised if she render not to slaves the recompense she paid to
generals?”
What must have been the decay of population and of agriculture in the
provinces, when even in Italy there was need of such strong protective
efforts, which were nevertheless so slightly successful?
Pliny had seen what was the fatal canker of the Roman empire in the
country as well as in the towns: slavery or semi-slavery.
Landed property was overwhelmed with taxes, was subject to conditions
which branded it with a sort of servitude, and was cultivated by a servile
population, in whose hands it became almost barren. The large holders were
thus disgusted, and the small ruined or reduced to a condition more and
more degraded. Add to this state of things in the civil department a
complete absence of freedom and vitality in the political; no elections,
no discussion, no public responsibility; characters weakened by indolence
and silence, or destroyed by despotic power, or corrupted by the intrigues
of court or army. Take a step farther; cast a glance over the moral
department; no religious creeds and nothing left of even Paganism but its
festivals and frivolous or shameful superstitions. The philosophy of
Greece and the old Roman manner of life had raised up, it is true, in the
higher ranks of society Stoics and jurists, the former the last champions
of morality and the dignity of human nature, the latter the last
enlightened servants of the civil community. But neither the doctrines of
the Stoics nor the science and able reasoning of the jurists were lights
and guides within the reach and for the use of the populace, who remained
a prey to the vices and miseries of servitude or public disorders,
oscillating between the wearisomeness of barren ignorance and the
corruptiveness of a life of adventure. All the causes of decay were at
this time spreading throughout Roman society; not a single preservative or
regenerative principle of national life was in any force or any esteem.
After the death of Marcus Aurelius the decay manifested and developed
itself, almost without interruption, for the space of a century, the
outward and visible sign of it being the disorganization and repeated
falls of the government itself. The series of emperors given to the Roman
world by heirship or adoption, from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius, was
succeeded by what may be termed an imperial anarchy; in the course of one
hundred and thirty-two years the sceptre passed into the hands of
thirty-nine sovereigns with the title of emperor (Augustus), and
was clutched at by thirty-one pretenders, whom history has dubbed tyrants,
without other claim than their fiery ambition and their trials of
strength, supported at one time in such and such a province of the empire
by certain legions or some local uprising, at another, and most frequently
in Italy itself, by the Praetorian guards, who had at their disposal the
name of Rome and the shadow of a senate. There were Italians, Africans,
Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, Illyrians, and Asiatics; and amongst the number
were to be met with some cases of eminence in war and politics, and some
even of rare virtue and patriotism, such as Pertinax, Septimius Severus,
Alexander Severus, Deeius, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, Tacitus, and
Probus. They made great efforts, some to protect the empire against the
barbarians, growing day by day more aggressive, others to re-establish
within it some sort of order, and to restore to the laws some sort of
force. All failed, and nearly all died a violent death, after a
short-lived guardianship of a fabric that was crumbling to pieces in every
part, but still under the grand name of Roman Empire. Gaul had her share
in this series of ephemeral emperors and tyrants; one of the most wicked
and most insane, though issue of one of the most valorous and able,
Caracalla, son of Septimius Severus, was born at Lyons, four years after
the death of Marcus Aurelius. A hundred years later Narbonne gave in two
years to the Roman world three emperors, Carus and his two sons, Carinus
and Numerian. Amongst the thirty-one tyrants who did not attain to the
title of Augustus, six were Gauls; and the last two, Amandus and AElianus,
were, A.D. 285, the chiefs of that great insurrection of peasants, slaves
or half-slaves, who, under the name of Bagaudians (signifying, according
to Ducange, a wandering troop of insurgents from field and forest), spread
themselves over the north of Gaul, between the Rhine and the Loire,
pillaging and ravaging in all directions, after having themselves endured
the pillaging and ravages of the fiscal agents and soldiers of the empire.
A contemporary witness, Lactantius, describes the causes of this popular
outbreak in the following words: “So enormous had the imposts become, that
the tillers’ strength was exhausted; fields became deserts and farms were
changed into forests. The fiscal agents measured the land by the clod;
trees, vinestalks, were all counted. The cattle were marked; the people
registered. Old age or sickness was no excuse; the sick and the infirm
were brought up; every one’s age was put down; a few years were added on
to the children’s, and taken off from the old men’s. Meanwhile the cattle
decreased, the people died, and there was no deduction made for the dead.”
It is said that to excite the confidence and zeal of their bands, the two
chiefs of the Bagaudians had medals struck, and that one exhibited the
head of Amandus, “Emperor, Caesar, Augustus, pious and prosperous,” with
the word “Hope” on the other side.
When public evils have reached such a pitch, and nevertheless the day has
not yet arrived for the entire disappearance of the system that causes
them, there arises nearly always a new power which, in the name of
necessity, applies some remedy to an intolerable condition. A legion
cantoned amongst the Tungrians (Tongres), in Belgica, had on its
muster-roll a Dalmatian named Diocletian, not yet very high in rank, but
already much looked up to by his comrades on account of his intelligence
and his bravery. He lodged at a woman’s, who was, they said, a Druidess,
and had the prophetic faculty. One day when he was settling his account
with her, she complained of his extreme parsimony: “Thou’rt too stingy,
Diocletian,” said she; and he answered laughing, “I’ll be prodigal when
I’m emperor.” “Laugh not,” rejoined she: “thou’lt be emperor when thou
hast slain a wild boar” (aper). The conversation got about amongst
Diocletian’s comrades. He made his way in the army, showing continual
ability and valor, and several times during his changes of quarters and
frequent hunting expeditions he found occasion to kill wild boars; but he
did not immediately become emperor, and several of his contemporaries,
Aurelian, Tacitus, Probus, Carus, and Numerian, reached the goal before
him. “I kill the wild boars,” said he to one of his friends, “and another
eats them.” The last mentioned of these ephemeral emperors, Numerian, had
for his father-in-law and inseparable comrade a Praetorian prefect named
Arrius Aper. During a campaign in Mesopotamia Numerian was assassinated,
and the voice of the army pronounced Aper guilty. The legions assembled to
deliberate about Numerian’s death and to choose his successor. Aper was
brought before the assembly under a guard of soldiers. Through the
exertions of zealous friends the candidature of Diocletian found great
favor. At the first words pronounced by him from a raised platform in the
presence of the troops, cries of “Diocletian Augustus “were raised in
every quarter. Other voices called on him to express his feelings about
Numerian’s murderers. Drawing his sword, Diocletian declared on oath that
he was innocent of the emperor’s death, but that he knew who was guilty
and would find means to punish him. Descending suddenly from the platform,
he made straight for the Praetorian prefect, and saying, “Aper, be
comforted; thou shalt not die by vulgar hands; by the right hand of great
AEneas thou fallest,” he gave him his death-wound. “I have killed the
prophetic wild boar,” said he in the evening to his confidants; and soon
afterwards, in spite of the efforts of certain rivals, he was emperor.
“Nothing is more difficult than to govern,” was a remark his comrades had
often heard made by him amidst so many imperial catastrophes. Emperor in
his turn, Diocletian treasured up this profound idea of the difficulty of
government, and he set to work, ably, if not successfully, to master it.
Convinced that the empire was too vast, and that a single man did not
suffice to make head against the two evils that were destroying it,—war
against barbarians on the frontiers, and anarchy within,—he divided
the Roman world into two portions, gave the West to Maximian, one of his
comrades, a coarse but valiant soldier, and kept the East himself. To the
anarchy that reigned within he opposed a general despotic administrative
organization, a vast hierarchy of civil and military agents, everywhere
present, everywhere masters, and dependent upon the emperor alone. By his
incontestable and admitted superiority, Diocletian remained the soul of
these two bodies. At the end of eight years he saw that the two empires
were still too vast; and to each Augustus he added a Caesar,—Galerius
and Constantius Chlorus,—who, save a nominal, rather than real,
subordination to the two emperors, had, each in his own state, the
imperial power with the same administrative system. In this partition of
the Roman world, Gaul had the best of it: she had for master, Constantius
Chlorus, a tried warrior, but just, gentle, and disposed to temper the
exercise of absolute power with moderation and equity. He had a son,
Constantine, at this time eighteen years of age, whom he was educating
carefully for government as well as for war. This system of the Roman
empire, thus divided between four masters, lasted thirteen years; still
fruitful in wars and in troubles at home, but without victories, and with
somewhat less of anarchy. In spite of this appearance of success and
durability, absolute power failed to perform its task; and, weary of his
burden and disgusted with the imperfection of his work, Diocletian
abdicated A.D. 303. No event, no solicitations of his old comrades in arms
and empire, could draw him from his retreat on his native soil of Salona,
in Dalmatia. “If you could see the vegetables planted by these hands,”
said he to Maximian and Galerius, “you would not make the attempt.” He had
persuaded or rather dragged his first colleague, Maximian, into abdication
after him; and so Galerius in the East, and Constantius Chlorus in the
West, remained sole emperors. After the retirement of Diocletian,
ambitions, rivalries, and intrigues were not slow to make head; Maximian
reappeared on the scene of empire, but only to speedily disappear (A.D.
310), leaving in his place his son Maxentius. Constantius Chlorus had died
A.D. 306, and his son, Constantine, had immediately been proclaimed by his
army Caesar and Augustus. Galerius died A.D. 311 and Constantine remained
to dispute the mastery with Maxentius in the West, and in the East with
Maximinus and Licinius, the last colleagues taken by Diocletian and
Galerius. On the 29th of October, A.D. 312, after having gained several
battles against Maxentius in Italy, at Milan, Brescia, and Verona,
Constantine pursued and defeated him before Rome, on the borders of the
Tiber, at the foot of the Milvian bridge; and the son of Maximian, drowned
in the Tiber, left to the son of Constantins Chlorus the Empire of the
West, to which that of the East was destined to be in a few years added,
by the defeat and death of Licinius. Constantine, more clear-sighted and
more fortunate than any of his predecessors, had understood his era, and
opened his eyes to the new light which was rising upon the world. Far from
persecuting the Christians, as Diocletian and Galerius had done, he had
given them protection, countenance, and audience; and towards him turned
all their hopes. He had even, it is said, in his last battle against
Maxentius, displayed the Christian banner, the cross, with this
inscription: Hoc signo vinces (“with this device thou shalt conquer “).
There is no knowing what was at that time the state of his soul, and to
what extent it was penetrated by the first rays of Christian faith; but it
is certain that he was the first amongst the masters of the Roman world to
perceive and accept its influence. With him Paganism fell, and
Christianity mounted the throne. With him the decay of Roman society
stops, and the era of modern society commences.
CHAPTER VI.
ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY IN GAUL.
When Christianity began to penetrate into Gaul, it encountered there two
religions very different one from the other, and infinitely more different
from the Christian religion; these were Druidism and Paganism—
hostile one to the other, but with a hostility political only, and
unconnected with those really religious questions that Christianity was
coming to raise.
Druidism, considered as a religion, was a mass of confusion, wherein the
instinctive notions of the human race concerning the origin and destiny of
the world and of mankind were mingled with the Oriental dreams of
metempsychosis—that pretended transmigration, at successive periods,
of immortal souls into divers creatures. This confusion was worse
confounded by traditions borrowed from the mythologies of the East and the
North, by shadowy remnants of a symbolical worship paid to the material
forces of nature, and by barbaric practices, such as human sacrifices, in
honor of the gods or of the dead. People who are without the scientific
development of language and the art of writing do not attain to systematic
and productive religious creeds. There is nothing to show that, from the
first appearance of the Gauls in history to their struggle with victorious
Rome, the religious influence of Druidism had caused any notable progress
to be made in Gallic manners and civilization. A general and strong, but
vague and incoherent, belief in the immortality of the soul was its
noblest characteristic. But with the religious elements, at the same time
coarse and mystical, were united two facts of importance: the Druids
formed a veritable ecclesiastical corporation, which had, throughout
Gallic society, fixed attributes, special manners and customs, an
existence at the same time distinct and national; and in the wars with
Rome this corporation became the most faithful representatives and the
most persistent defenders of Gallic independence and nationality. The
Druids were far more a clergy than Druidism was a religion; but it was an
organized and a patriotic clergy. It was especially on this account that
they exercised in Gaul an influence which was still existent, particularly
in north-western Gaul, at the time when Christianity reached the Gallic
provinces of the south and centre.
The Greco-Roman Paganism was, at this time, far more powerful than
Druidism in Gaul, and yet more lukewarm and destitute of all religious
vitality. It was the religion of the conquerors and of the state, and was
invested, in that quality, with real power; but, beyond that, it had but
the power derived from popular customs and superstitions. As a religious
creed, the Latin Paganism was at bottom empty, indifferent, and inclined
to tolerate all religions in the state, provided only that they, in their
turn, were indifferent at any rate towards itself, and that they did not
come troubling the state, either by disobeying her rulers or by attacking
her old deities, dead and buried beneath their own still standing altars.
Such were the two religions with which, in Gaul, nascent Christianity had
to contend. Compared with them it was, to all appearance, very small and
very weak; but it was provided with the most efficient weapons for
fighting and beating them, for it had exactly the moral forces which they
lacked. Christianity, instead of being, like Druidism, a religion
exclusively national and hostile to all that was foreign, proclaimed a
universal religion, free from all local and national partiality,
addressing itself to all men in the name of the same God, and offering to
all the same salvation. It is one of the strangest and most significant
facts in history, that the religion most universally human, most
dissociated from every consideration but that of the rights and well-being
of the human race in its entirety—that such a religion, be it
repeated, should have come forth from the womb of the most exclusive, most
rigorously and obstinately national religion that ever appeared in the
world, that is, Judaism. Such, nevertheless, was the birth of
Christianity; and this wonderful contrast between the essence and the
earthly origin of Christianity was without doubt one of its most powerful
attractions and most efficacious means of success.
Against Paganism Christianity was armed with moral forces not a whit less
great. Confronting mythological traditions and poetical or philosophical
allegories, appeared a religion truly religious, concerned solely with the
relations of mankind to God and with their eternal future. To the pagan
indifference of the Roman world the Christians opposed the profound
conviction of their faith, and not only their firmness in defending it
against all powers and all dangers, but also their ardent passion for
propagating it without any motive but the yearning to make their fellows
share in its benefits and its hopes. They confronted, nay, they welcomed
martyrdom, at one time to maintain their own Christianity, at another to
make others Christians around them; propagandism was for them a duty
almost as imperative as fidelity. And it was not in memory of old and
obsolete mythologies, but in the name of recent deeds and persons, in
obedience to laws proceeding from God, One and Universal, in fulfilment
and continuation of a contemporary and superhuman history,—that of
Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man,—that the Christians of
the first two centuries labored to convert to their faith the whole Roman
world. Marcus Aurelius was contemptuously astonished at what he called the
obstinacy of the Christians; he knew not from what source these nameless
heroes drew a strength superior to his own, though he was at the same time
emperor and sage. It is impossible to assign with exactness the date of
the first footprints and first labors of Christianity in Gaul. It was not,
however, from Italy, nor in the Latin tongue and through Latin writers,
but from the East and through the Greeks, that it first came and began to
spread. Marseilles—and the different Greek colonies, originally from
Asia Minor and settled upon the shores of the Mediterranean or along the
Rhone, mark the route and were the places whither the first Christian
missionaries carried their teaching: on this point the letters of the
Apostles and the writings of the first two generations of their disciples
are clear and abiding proof. In the west of the empire, especially in
Italy, the Christians at their first appearance were confounded with the
Jews, and comprehended under the same name: “The Emperor Claudius,” says
Suetonius, “drove from Rome (A.D. 52) the Jews who, at the instigation of
Christus, were in continual commotion.” After the destruction of Jerusalem
by Titus (A.D. 71), the Jews, Christian or not, dispersed throughout the
Empire; but the Christians were not slow to signalize themselves by their
religious fervor, and to come forward everywhere under their own true
name. Lyons became the chief centre of Christian preaching and association
in Gaul. As early as the first half of the second century there existed
there a Christian congregation, regularly organized as a church, and
already sufficiently important to be in intimate and frequent
communication with the Christian Churches of the East and West. There is a
tradition, generally admitted, that St. Pothinus, the first Bishop of
Lyons, was sent thither from the East by the Bishop of Smyrna, St.
Polycarp, himself a disciple of St. John. One thing is certain, that the
Christian Church of Lyons produced Gaul’s first martyrs, amongst whom was
the Bishop, St. Pothinus.
It was under Marcus Aurelius, the most philosophical and most
conscientious of the emperors, that there was enacted for the first time
in Gaul, against nascent Christianity, that scene of tyranny and barbarity
which was to be renewed so often and during so many centuries in the midst
of Christendom itself. In the eastern provinces of the Empire and in Italy
the Christians had already been several times persecuted, now with
cold-blooded cruelty, now with some slight hesitation and irresolution.
Nero had caused them to be burned in the streets of Rome, accusing them of
the conflagration himself had kindled, and, a few months before his fall,
St. Peter and St. Paul had undergone martyrdom at Rome. Domitian had
persecuted and put to death Christians even in his own family, and though
invested with the honors of the consulate. Righteous Trajan, when
consulted by Pliny the Younger on the conduct he should adopt in Bithynia
towards the Christians, had answered, “It is impossible, in this sort of
matter, to establish any certain general rule; there must be no quest set
on foot against them, and no unsigned indictment must be accepted; but if
they be accused and convicted, they must be punished.” To be punished, it
sufficed that they were convicted of being Christians; and it was Trajan
himself who condemned St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, to be brought to
Rome and thrown to the beasts, for the simple reason that he was highly
Christian. Marcus Aurelius, not only by virtue of his philosophical
conscientiousness, but by reason of an incident in his history, seemed
bound to be farther than any other from persecuting the Christians. During
one of his campaigns on the Danube, A.D. 174, his army was suffering
cruelly from fatigue and thirst; and at the very moment when they were on
the point of engaging in a great battle against the barbarians, the rain
fell in abundance, refreshed the Roman soldiers, and conduced to their
victory. There was in the Roman army a legion, the twelfth, called the Melitine
or the Thundering, which bore on its roll many Christian soldiers.
They gave thanks for the rain and the victory to the one omnipotent God
who had heard their prayers, whilst the pagans rendered like honor to
Jupiter, the rain-giver and the thunderer. The report about these
Christians got spread abroad and gained credit in the Empire, so much so
that there was attributed to Marcus Aurelius a letter, in which, by
reason, no doubt, of this incident, he forbade persecution of the
Christians. Tertullian, a contemporary witness, speaks of this letter in
perfect confidence; and the Christian writers of the following century did
not hesitate to regard it as authentic. Nowadays a strict examination of
its existing text does not allow such a character to be attributed to it.
At any rate the persecutions of the Christians were not forbidden, for in
the year 177, that is, only three years after the victory of Marcus
Aurelius over the Germans, there took place, undoubtedly by his orders,
the persecution which caused at Lyons the first Gallic martyrdom. This was
the fourth, or, according to others, the fifth great imperial persecution
of the Christians.
Most tales of the martyrs were written long after the event, and came to
be nothing more than legends laden with details often utterly puerile or
devoid of proof. The martyrs of Lyons in the second century wrote, so to
speak, their own history; for it was their comrades, eye-witnesses of
their sufferings and their virtue, who gave an account of them in a long
letter addressed to their friends in Asia Minor, and written with
passionate sympathy and pious prolixity, but bearing all the,
characteristics of truth. It seems desirable to submit for perusal that
document, which has been preserved almost entire in the Ecclesiastical
History of Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea in the third century, and which
will exhibit, better than any modern representations, the state of facts
and of souls in the midst of the imperial persecutions, and the mighty
faith, devotion, and courage with which the early Christians faced the
most cruel trials.
“The servants of Christ, dwelling at Vienne and Lyons in Gaul, to the
brethren settled in Asia and Phrygia, who have the same faith and hope of
redemption that we have, peace, grace, and glory from God the Father and
Jesus Christ our Lord!
“None can tell to you in speech or fully set forth to you in writing the
weight of our misery, the madness and rage of the Gentiles against the
saints, and all that hath been suffered by the blessed martyrs. Our enemy
doth rush upon us with all the fury of his powers, and already giveth us a
foretaste and the first-fruits of all the license with which he doth
intend to set upon us. He hath omitted nothing for the training of his
agents against us, and he doth exercise them in a sort of preparatory work
against the servants of the Lord. Not only are we driven from the public
buildings, from the baths, and from the forum, but it is forbidden to all
our people to appear publicly in any place whatsoever.
“The grace of God hath striven for us against the devil: at the same time
that it hath sustained the weak, it hath opposed to the Evil One, as it
were, pillars of strength—men strong and valiant, ready to draw on
themselves all his attacks. They have had to bear all manner of insult;
they have deemed but a small matter that which others find hard and
terrible; and they have thought only of going to Christ, proving by their
example that the sufferings of this world are not worthy to be put in the
balance with the glory which is to be manifested in us. They have endured,
in the first place, all the outrages that could be heaped upon them by the
multitude, outcries, blows, thefts, spoliation, stoning, imprisonment, all
that the fury of the people could devise against hated enemies. Then,
dragged to the forum by the military tribune and the magistrates of the
city, they have been questioned before the people and cast into prison
until the coming of the governor. He, from the moment our people appeared
before him, committed all manner of violence against them. Then stood
forth one of our brethren, Vettius Epagathus, full of love towards God and
his neighbor, living a life so pure and strict that, young as he was, men
held him to be the equal of the aged Zacharias.— He could not bear
that judgment so unjust should go forth against us, and, moved with
indignation, he asked leave to defend his brethren, and to prove that
there was in them no kind of irreligion or impiety. Those present at the
tribunal, amongst whom he was known and celebrated, cried out against him,
and the governor himself, enraged at so just a demand, asked him no more
than this question, ‘Art thou a Christian?’ Straightway with a loud voice,
he declared himself a Christian, and was placed amongst the number of the
martyrs. . . .
“Afterwards the rest began to be examined and classed. The first, firm and
well prepared, made hearty and solemn confession of their faith. Others,
ill prepared and with little firmness, showed that they lacked strength
for such a fight. About ten of them fell away, which caused us incredible
pain and mourning. Their example broke down the courage of others, who,
not being yet in bonds, though they had already had much to suffer, kept
close to the martyrs, and withdrew not out of their sight. Then were we
all stricken with dread for the issue of the trial: not that we had great
fear of the torments inflicted, but because, prophesying the result
according to the degree of courage of the accused, we feared much falling
away. They took, day by day, those of our brethren who were worthy to
replace the weak; so that all the best of the two churches, those whose
care and zeal had founded them, were taken and confined. They took,
likewise, some of our slaves, for the governor had ordered that they
should be all summoned to attend in public; and they, fearing the torments
they saw the saints undergo, and instigated by the soldiers, accused us
falsely of odious deeds, such as the banquet of Thyestes, the incest of
OEdipus, and other crimes which must not be named or even thought of, and
which we cannot bring ourselves to believe that men were ever guilty of.
These reports having once spread amongst the people, even those persons
who had hitherto, by reason, perhaps, of relationship, shown moderation
towards us, burst forth into bitter indignation against our people. Thus
was fulfilled that which had been prophesied by the Lord: ‘The time cometh
when whosoever shall kill you shall think that he doeth God service.’
Since that day the holy martyrs have suffered tortures that no words can
express.
“The fury of the multitude, of the governor, and of the soldiers, fell
chiefly upon Sanctus, a deacon of Vienne; upon Maturus, a neophyte still,
but already a valiant champion of Christ; upon Attalus also, born at
Pergamus, but who hath ever been one of the pillars of our Church; upon
Blandina, lastly, in whom Christ hath made it appear that persons who seem
vile and despised of men are just those whom God holds in the highest
honor by reason of the excellent love they bear Him, which is manifested
in their firm virtue, and not in vain show. All of us, and even Blandina’s
mistress here below, who fought valiantly with the other martyrs, feared
that this poor slave, so weak of body, would not be in a condition to
freely confess her faith; but she was sustained by such vigor of soul that
the executioners, who from morn till eve put her to all manner of torture,
failed in their efforts, and declared themselves beaten, not knowing what
further punishment to inflict, and marvelling that she still lived, with
her body pierced through and through, and torn piecemeal by so many
tortures, of which a single one should have sufficed to kill her. But that
blessed saint, like a valiant athlete, took fresh courage and strength
from the confession of her faith; all feeling of pain vanished, and ease
returned to her at the mere utterance of the words, ‘I am a Christian, and
no evil is wrought amongst us.’
“As for Sanctus, the executioners hoped that in the midst of the tortures
inflicted upon him—the most atrocious which man could devise—they
would hear him say something unseemly or unlawful; but so firmly did he
resist them, that, without even saying his name, or that of his nation or
city, or whether he was bond or free, he only replied in the Roman tongue,
to all questions, ‘I am a Christian.’ Therein was, for him, his name, his
country, his condition, his whole being; and never could the Gentiles
wrest from him another word. The fury of the governor and the executioners
was redoubled against him; and, not knowing how to torment him further,
they applied to his most tender members bars of red-hot iron. His members
burned; but he, upright and immovable, persisted in his profession of
faith, as if living waters from the bosom of Christ flowed over him and
refreshed him. . . . Some days after, these infidels began again to
torture him, believing that if they inflicted upon his blistering wounds
the same agonies, they would triumph over him, who seemed unable to bear
the mere touch of their hands; and they hoped, also, that the sight of
this torturing alive would terrify his comrades. But, contrary to general
expectation, the body of Sanctus, rising suddenly up, stood erect and firm
amidst these repeated torments, and recovered its old appearance and the
use of its members, as if, by Divine grace, this second laceration of his
flesh had caused healing rather than suffering. . . .
“When the tyrants had thus expended and exhausted their tortures against
the firmness of the martyrs sustained by Christ, the devil devised other
contrivances. They were cast into the darkest and most unendurable place
in their prison; their feet were dragged out and compressed to the utmost
tension of the muscles; the jailers, as if instigated by a demon, tried
every sort of torture, insomuch that several of them, for whom God willed
such an end, died of suffocation in prison. Others, who had been tortured
in such a manner that it was thought impossible they should long survive,
deprived as they were of every remedy and aid from men, but supported
nevertheless by the grace of God, remained sound and strong in body as in
soul, and comforted and reanimated their brethren. . . .
“The blessed Pothinus, who held at that time the bishopric of Lyons, being
upwards of ninety, and so weak in body that he could hardly breathe, was
himself brought before the tribunal, so worn with old age and sickness
that he seemed nigh to extinction; but he still possessed his soul,
wherewith to subserve the triumph of Christ. Being brought by the soldiers
before the tribunal, whither he was accompanied by all the magistrates of
the city and the whole populace, that pursued him with hootings, he
offered, as if he had been the very Christ, the most glorious testimony.
At a question from the governor, who asked what the God of the Christians
was, he answered, ‘If thou be worthy, thou shalt know.’ He was immediately
raised up, without any respect or humanity, and blows were showered upon
him; those who happened to be nearest to him assaulted him grievously with
foot and fist, without the slightest regard for his age; those who were
farther off cast at him whatever was to their hand; they would all have
thought themselves guilty of the greatest default if they had not done
their best, each on his own score, to insult him brutally. They believed
they were avenging the wrongs of their gods. Pothinus, still breathing,
was cast again into prison, and two days after yielded up his spirit.
“Then were manifested a singular dispensation of God and the immeasurable
compassion of Jesus Christ; an example rare amongst brethren, but in
accord with the intentions and the justice of the Lord. All those who, at
their first arrest, had denied their faith, were themselves cast into
prison and given over to the same sufferings as the other martyrs, for
their denial did not serve them at all. Those who had made profession of
being what they really were—that is, Christians—were
imprisoned without being accused of other crimes. The former, on the
contrary, were confined as homicides and wretches, thus suffering a double
punishment. The one sort found repose in the honorable joys of martyrdom,
in the hope of promised blessedness, in the love of Christ, and in the
spirit of God the Father; the other were a prey to the reproaches of
conscience. It was easy to distinguish the one from the other by their
looks. The one walked joyously, bearing on their faces a majesty mingled
with sweetness, and their very bonds seemed unto them an ornament, even as
the broidery that decks a bride . . . the other, with downcast eyes and
humble and dejected air, were an object of contempt to the Gentiles
themselves, who regarded them as cowards who had forfeited the glorious
and saving name of Christians. And so they who were present at this double
spectacle were thereby signally strengthened, and whoever amongst them
chanced to be arrested confessed the faith without doubt or hesitation. .
. .
“Things having come to this pass, different kinds of death were inflicted
on the martyrs, and they offered to God a crown of divers flowers. It was
but right that the most valiant champions, those who had sustained a
double assault and gained a signal victory, should receive a splendid
crown of immortality. The neophyte Maturus and the deacon Sanctus, with
Blandina and Attalus, then, were led into the amphitheatre, and thrown to
the beasts, as a sight to please the inhumanity of the Gentiles. . . .
Maturus and Sanctus there underwent all kinds of tortures, as if they had
hitherto suffered nothing; or, rather, like athletes who had already been
several times victorious, and were contending for the crown of crowns,
they braved the stripes with which they were beaten, the bites of the
beasts that dragged them to and fro, and all that was demanded by the
outcries of an insensate mob, so much the more furious, because it could
by no means overcome the firmness of the martyrs or extort from Sanctus
any other speech than that which, on the first day, he had uttered: ‘I am
a Christian.’
“After this fearful contest, as life was not extinct, their throats were
at last cut, when they alone had thus been offered as a spectacle to the
public instead of the variety displayed in the combat of gladiators.
Blandina, in her turn, tied to a stake, was given to the beasts: she was
seen hanging, as it were, on a sort of cross, calling upon God with
trustful fervor, and the brethren present were reminded, in the person of
a sister, of Him who had been crucified for their salvation. . . . As none
of the beasts would touch the body of Blandina, she was released from the
stake, taken back to prison, and reserved for another occasion. . . .
Attalus, whose execution, seeing that he was a man of mark, was furiously
demanded by the people, came forward ready to brave everything, as a man
deriving confidence from the memory of his life, for he had courageously
trained himself to discipline, and had always amongst us borne witness for
the truth. He was led all round the amphitheatre, preceded by a board
bearing this inscription in Latin: ‘This is Attalus the Christian.’ The
people pursued him with the most furious hootings; but the governor,
having learnt that he was a Roman citizen, had him taken back to prison
with the rest. Having subsequently written to Caesar, he waited for his
decision as to those who were thus detained.
“This delay was neither useless nor unprofitable, for then shone forth the
boundless compassion of Christ. Those of the brethren who had been but
dead members of the Church, were recalled to life by the pains and help of
the living; the martyrs obtained grace for those who had fallen away; and
great was the joy in the Church, at the same time virgin and mother, for
she once more found living those whom she had given up for dead. Thus
revived and strengthened by the goodness of God, who willeth not the death
of the sinner, but rather inviteth him to repentance, they presented
themselves before the tribunal, to be questioned afresh by the governor.
Caesar had replied that they who confessed themselves to be Christians
should be put to the sword, and they who denied sent away safe and sound.
When the time for the great market had fully come, there assembled a
numerous multitude from every nation and every province. The governor had
the blessed martyrs brought up before his judgment-seat, showing them
before the people with all the pomp of a theatre. He questioned them
afresh; and those who were discovered to be Roman citizens were beheaded,
the rest were thrown to the beasts.
“Great glory was gained for Christ by means of those who had at first
denied their faith, and who now confessed it contrary to the expectation
of the Gentiles. Those who, having been privately questioned, declared
themselves Christians were added to the number of the martyrs. Those in
whom appeared no vestige of faith, and no fear of God, remained without
the pale of the Church. When they were dealing with those who had been
reunited to it, one Alexander, a Phrygian by nation, a physician by
profession, who had for many years been dwelling in Gaul, a man well known
to all for his love of God and open preaching of the faith, took his place
in the hall of judgment, exhorting by signs all who filled it to confess
their faith, even as if he had been called in to deliver them of it. The
multitude, enraged to see that those who had at first denied, turned round
and proclaimed their faith, cried out against Alexander, whom they accused
of the conversion. The governor forthwith asked him what he was, and at
the answer, ‘I am a Christian,’ condemned him to the beasts. On the morrow
Alexander was again brought up, together with Attalus, whom the governor,
to please the people, had once more condemned to the beasts. After they
had both suffered in the amphitheatre all the torments that could be
devised, they were put to the sword. Alexander uttered not a complaint,
not a word; he had the air of one who was talking inwardly with God.
Attalus, seated on an iron seat, and waiting for the fire to consume his
body, said, in Latin, to the people, ‘See what ye are doing; it is in
truth devouring men; as for us, we devour not men, and we do no evil at
all.’ He was asked what was the name of God: ‘God,’ said he, ‘is not like
us mortals; He hath no name.’
“After all these martyrs, on the last day of the shows, Blandina was again
brought up, together with a young lad, named Ponticus, about fifteen years
old. They had been brought up every day before that they might see the
tortures of their brethren. When they were called upon to swear by the
altars of the Gentiles, they remained firm in their faith, making no
account of those pretended gods, and so great was the fury of the
multitude against them, that no pity was shown for the age of the child or
the sex of the woman. Tortures were heaped upon them; they were made to
pass through every kind of torment, but the desired end was not gained.
Supported by the exhortations of his sister, who was seen and heard by the
Gentiles, Ponticus, after having endured all magnanimously, gave up the
ghost. Blandina, last of all,—like a noble mother that hath roused
the courage of her sons for the fight, and sent them forth to conquer for
their king,—passed once more through all the tortures they had
suffered, anxious to go and rejoin them, and rejoicing at each step
towards death. At length, after she had undergone fire, the talons of
beasts, and agonizing aspersion, she was wrapped in a network and thrown
to a bull that tossed her in the air; she was already unconscious of all
that befell her, and seemed altogether taken up with watching for the
blessings that Christ had in store for her. Even the Gentiles allowed that
never a woman had suffered so much or so long.
“Still their fury and their cruelty towards the saints were not appeased.
They devised another way of raging against them; they cast to the dogs the
bodies of those who had died of suffocation in prison, and watched night
and day that none of our brethren might come and bury them. As for what
remained of the martyrs’ half-mangled or devoured corpses, they left them
exposed under a guard of soldiers, coming to look on them with insulting
eyes, and saying, ‘Where is now their God? Of what use to them was this
religion for which they laid down their lives?’ We were overcome with
grief that we were not able to bury these poor corpses; nor the darkness
of night, nor gold, nor prayers could help us to succeed therein. After
being thus exposed for six days in the open air, given over to all manner
of outrage, the corpses of the martyrs were at last burned, reduced to
ashes, and cast hither and thither by the infidels upon the waters of the
Rhone, that there might be left no trace of them on earth. They acted as
if they had been more mighty than God, and could rob our brethren of their
resurrection: ‘’Tis in that hope,’ said they, ‘that these folk bring
amongst us a new and strange religion, that they set at nought the most
painful torments, and that they go joyfully to face death: let us see if
they will rise again, if their God will come to their aid and will be able
to tear them from our hands.’”
It is not without a painful effort that, even after so many centuries, we
can resign ourselves to be witnesses, in imagination only, of such a
spectacle. We can scarce believe that amongst men of the same period and
the same city so much ferocity could be displayed in opposition to so much
courage, the passion for barbarity against the passion for virtue.
Nevertheless, such is history; and it should be represented as it really
was: first of all, for truth’s sake; then for the due appreciation of
virtue and all it costs of effort and sacrifice; and, lastly, for the
purpose of showing what obstacles have to be surmounted, what struggles
endured, and what sufferings borne, when the question is the
accomplishment of great moral and social reforms. Marcus Aurelius was,
without any doubt, a virtuous ruler, and one who had it in his heart to be
just and humane; but he was an absolute ruler, that is to say, one fed
entirely on his owns ideas, very ill-informed about the facts on which he
had to decide, and without a free public to warn him of the errors of his
ideas or the practical results of his decrees. He ordered the persecution
of the Christians without knowing what the Christians were, or what the
persecution would be, and this conscientious philosopher let loose at
Lyons, against the most conscientious of subjects, the zealous servility
of his agents, and the atrocious passions of the mob.
The persecution of the Christians did not stop at Lyons, or with Marcus
Aurelius; it became, during the third century, the common practice of the
emperors in all parts of the Empire: from A.D. 202 to 312, under the
reigns of Septimius Severus, Maximinus the First, Decius, Valerian,
Aurelian, Diocletian, Maximian, and Galerius, there are reckoned six great
general persecutions, without counting others more circumscribed or less
severe. The Emperors Alexander Severns, Philip the Arabian, and
Constantius Chlorus were almost the only exceptions to this cruel system;
and nearly always, wherever it was in force, the Pagan mob, in its
brutality or fanatical superstition, added to imperial rigor its own
atrocious and cynical excesses.
But Christian zeal was superior in perseverance and efficacy to Pagan
persecution. St. Pothinus the Martyr was succeeded as bishop at Lyons by
St. Irenaeus, the most learned, most judicious, and most illustrious of
the early heads of the Church in Gaul. Originally from Asia Minor,
probably from Smyrna, he had migrated to Gaul, at what particular date is
not known, and had settled as a simple priest in the diocese of Lyons,
where it was not long before he exercised vast influence, as well on the
spot as also during certain missions intrusted to him, and amongst them
one, they say, to the Pope St. Eleutherius at Rome. Whilst Bishop of
Lyons, from A.D. 177 to 202, he employed the five and twenty years in
propagating the Christian faith in Gaul, and in defending, by his
writings, the Christian doctrines against the discord to which they had
already been subjected in the East, and which was beginning to penetrate
to the West. In 202, during the persecution instituted by Septimius
Severus, St. Irenaeus crowned by martyrdom his active and influential
life. It was in his episcopate that there began what may be called the
swarm of Christian missionaries who, towards the end of the second and
during the third centuries, spread over the whole of Gaul, preaching the
faith and forming churches. Some went from Lyons at the instigation of St.
Irenaeus; others from Rome, especially under the pontificate of Pope St.
Fabian, himself martyred in 219; St. Felix and St. Fortunatus to Valence,
St. Ferreol to Besancon, St. Marcellus to Chalons-sur-Saone, St. Benignus
to Dijon, St. Trophimus to Arles, St. Paul to Narbonne, St. Saturninus to
Toulouse, St. Martial to Limoges, St. Andeol and St. Privatus to the
Cevennes, St. Austremoine to Clermont-Ferrand, St. Gatian to Tours, St.
Denis to Paris, and so many others that their names are scarcely known
beyond the pages of erudite historians, or the very spots where they
preached, struggled, and conquered, often at the price of their lives.
Such were the founders of the faith and of the Christian Church in France.
At the commencement of the fourth century their work was, if not
accomplished, at any rate triumphant; and when, A.D. 312, Constantine
declared himself a Christian, he confirmed the fact of the conquest of the
Roman world, and of Gaul in particular, by Christianity. No doubt the
majority of the inhabitants were not as yet Christians; but it was clear
that the Christians were in the ascendant and had command of the future.
Of the two grand elements which were to meet together, on the ruins of
Roman society, for the formation of modern society, the moral element, the
Christian religion, had already taken possession of souls; the devastated
territory awaited the coming of new peoples, known to history under the
general name of Germans, whom the Romans called the barbarians.
CHAPTER VII.
THE GERMANS IN GAUL.
THE FRANKS AND CLOVIS.
About A.D. 241 or 242 the sixth Roman legion, commanded by Aurelian, at
that time military tribune, and thirty years later, emperor, had just
finished a campaign on the Rhine, undertaken for the purpose of driving
the Germans from Gaul, and was preparing for Eastern service, to make war
on the Persians. The soldiers sang,—
|
We have slain a thousand Franks and a thousand Sarmatians; we want a thousand, thousand, Thousand Persians. |
That was, apparently, a popular burden at the time, for on the days of
military festivals, at Rome and in Gaul, the children sang, as they
danced,—
|
We have cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand, Thousand; One man hath cut off the heads of a thousand, thousand, thousand, Thousand, thousand; May he live a thousand, thousand years, he who hath slain a thousand, thousand! Nobody hath so much of wine as he hath of blood poured out. |
Aurelian, the hero of these ditties, was indeed much given to the pouring
out of blood, for at the approach of a fresh war he wrote to the senate,—
“I marvel, Conscript Fathers, that ye have so much misgiving about opening
the Sibylline books, as if ye were deliberating in an assembly of
Christians, and not in the temple of all the gods. . . . Let inquiry be
made of the sacred books, and let celebration take place of the ceremonies
that ought to be fulfilled. Far from refusing, I offer, with zeal, to
satisfy all expenditure required, with captives of every nationality,
victims of royal rank. It is no shame to conquer with the aid of the gods;
it is thus that our ancestors began and ended many a war.”
Human sacrifices, then, were not yet foreign to Pagan festivals, and
probably the blood of more than one Frankish captive on that occasion
flowed in the temple of all the gods.
It is the first time the name of Franks appears in history; and it
indicated no particular, single people, but a confederation of Germanic
peoplets, settled or roving on the right bank of the Rhine, from the Mayn
to the ocean. The number and the names of the tribes united in this
confederation are uncertain. A chart of the Roman empire, prepared
apparently at the end of the fourth century, in the reign of the Emperor
Honorius (which chart, called tabula Peutingeri, was found amongst
the ancient MSS. collected by Conrad Peutinger, a learned German
philosopher, in the fifteenth century), bears over a large territory on
the right bank of the Rhine, the word Francia, and the following
enumeration: “The Chaucians, the Ampsuarians, the Cheruscans, and the
Chamavians, who are also called Franks;” and to these tribes divers
chroniclers added several others, “the Attuarians, the Bructerians, the
Cattians, and the Sicambrians.” Whatever may have been the specific names
of these peoplets, they were all of German race, called themselves Franks,
that is, “free-men,” and made, sometimes separately, sometimes
collectively, continued incursions into Gaul,—especially Belgica and
the northern portions of Lyonness,—at one time plundering and
ravaging, at another occupying forcibly, or demanding of the Roman
emperors lands whereon to settle. From the middle of the third to the
beginning of the fifth century, the history of the Western empire presents
an almost uninterrupted series of these invasions on the part of the
Franks, together with the different relationships established between them
and the Imperial government. At one time whole tribes settled on Roman
soil, submitted to the emperors, entered their service, and fought for
them, even against their own German compatriots. At another, isolated
individuals, such and such warriors of German race, put themselves at the
command of the emperors, and became of importance. At the middle of the
third century, the Emperor Valerian, on committing a command to Aurelian,
wrote, “Thou wilt have with thee Hartmund, Haldegast, Hildmund, and
Carioviscus.” Some Frankish tribes allied themselves more or less
fleetingly with the Imperial government, at the same time that they
preserved their independence; others pursued, throughout the Empire, their
life of incursion and adventure. From A.D. 260 to 268, under the reign of
Gallienus, a band of Franks threw itself upon Gaul, scoured it from
north-east to south-east, plundering and devastating on its way; then it
passed from Aquitania into Spain, took and burned Tarragona, gained
possession of certain vessels, sailed away, and disappeared in Africa,
after having wandered about for twelve years at its own will and pleasure.
There was no lack of valiant emperors, precarious and ephemeral as their
power may have been, to defend the Empire, and especially Gaul, against
those enemies, themselves ephemeral, but forever recurring; Decius,
Valerian, Gallienus, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, and Probus gallantly
withstood those repeated attacks of German hordes. Sometimes they
flattered themselves they had gained a definitive victory, and then the
old Roman pride exhibited itself in their patriotic confidence. About A.D.
278, the Emperor Probes, after gaining several victories in Gaul over the
Franks, wrote to the senate,—
“I render thanks to the immortal gods, Conscript Fathers, for that they
have confirmed your judgment as regards me. Germany is subdued throughout
its whole extent; nine kings of different nations have come and cast
themselves at my feet, or rather at yours, as suppliants, with their
foreheads in the dust. Already all those barbarians are tilling for you,
sowing for you, and fighting for you against the most distant nations.
“Order ye, therefore, according to your custom, prayers of thanksgiving,
for we have slain four thousand of the enemy; we have had offered to us
sixteen thousand men ready armed; and we have wrested from the enemy the
seventy most important towns. The Gauls, in fact, are completely
delivered. The crowns offered to me by all the cities of Gaul I have
submitted, Conscript Fathers, to your grace; dedicate ye them with your
own hands to Jupiter, all-bountiful, all-powerful, and to the other
immortal gods and goddesses. All the booty is re-taken, and, further, we
have made fresh captures, more considerable than our first losses; the
fields of Gaul are tilled by the oxen of the barbarians, and German teams
bend their necks in slavery to our husbandmen; divers nations raise cattle
for our consumption, and horses to remount our cavalry; our stores are
full of the corn of the barbarians—in one word, we have left to the
vanquished nought but the soil; all their other possessions are ours. We
had at first thought it necessary, Conscript Fathers, to appoint a new
Governor of Germany; but we have put off this measure to the time when our
ambition shall be more completely satisfied, which will be, as it seems to
us, when it shall have pleased Divine Providence to increase and multiply
the forces of our armies.”
Probus had good reason to wish that “Divine Providence might be pleased to
increase the forces of the Roman armies,” for even after his victories,
exaggerated as they probably were, they did not suffice for their task,
and it was not long before the vanquished recommenced war. He had
dispersed over the territory of the Empire the majority of the prisoners
he had taken. A band of Franks, who had been transported and established
as a military colony on the European shore of the Black Sea, could not
make up their minds to remain there. They obtained possession of some
vessels, traversed the Propontis, the Hellespont, and the Archipelago,
ravaged the coasts of Greece, Asia Minor, and Africa, plundered Syracuse,
scoured the whole of the Mediterranean, entered the ocean by the Straits
of Gibraltar, and, making their way up again along the coasts of Gaul,
arrived at last at the mouths of the Rhine, where they once more found
themselves at home amongst the vines which Probus, in his victorious
progress, had been the first to have planted, and with probably their old
taste for adventure and plunder.
After the commencement of the fifth century, from A.D. 406 to 409, it was
no longer by incursions limited to certain points, and sometimes repelled
with success, that the Germans harassed the Roman provinces: a veritable
deluge of divers nations, forced one upon another, from Asia into Europe,
by wars and migration in mass, inundated the Empire and gave the decisive
signal for its fall. St. Jerome did not exaggerate when he wrote to
Ageruchia, “Nations, countless in number and exceeding fierce, have
occupied all the Gauls; Quadians, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepidians,
Herulians, Saxons, Burgundians, Allemannians, Pannonians, and even
Assyrians have laid waste all that there is between the Alps and the
Pyrenees, the ocean and the Rhine. Sad destiny of the commonwealth!
Mayence, once a noble city, hath been taken and destroyed; thousands of
men were slaughtered in the church. Worms hath fallen after a long siege.
The inhabitants of Rheims, a powerful city, and those of Amiens, Arras,
Terouanne, at the extremity of Gaul, Tournay, Spires, and Strasburg have
been carried away to Germany. All hath been ravaged in Aquitania
(Novempopulania), Lyonness, and Narbonness; the towns, save a few, are
dispeopled; the sword pursueth them abroad and famine at home. I cannot
speak without tears of Toulouse; if she be not reduced to equal ruin, it
is to the merits of her holy Bishop Exuperus that she oweth it.”
Then took place throughout the Roman empire, in the East as well as in the
West, in Asia and Africa as well as in Europe, the last grand struggle
between the Roman armies and the barbaric nations. Armies is the proper
term; for, to tell the truth, there was no longer a Roman nation, and very
seldom a Roman emperor with some little capacity for government or war.
The long continuance of despotism and slavery had enervated equally the
ruling power and the people; everything depended on the soldiers and their
generals. It was in Gaul that the struggle was most obstinate and most
promptly brought to a decisive issue, and the confusion there was as great
as the obstinacy. Barbaric peoplets served in the ranks and barbaric
leaders held the command of the Roman armies: Stilieho was a Goth;
Arbogastes and Mellobaudes were Franks; Ricimer was a Suevian. The Roman
generals, Bonifacius, Aetius, AEgidius, Syagrius, at one time fought the
barbarians, at another negotiated with such and such of them, either to
entice them to take service against other barbarians, or to promote the
objects of personal ambition, for the Roman generals also, under the
titles of patrician, consul, or proconsul, aspired to and attained a sort
of political independence, and contributed to the dismemberment of the
empire in the very act of defending it. No later than A.D. 412, two German
nations, the Visigoths and the Burgundians, took their stand definitively
in Gaul, and founded there two new kingdoms: the Visigoths, under their
kings Ataulph and Wallia, in Aquitania and Narbonness; the Burgundians,
under their kings Gundichaire and Gundioch, in Lyonness, from the southern
point of Alsatia right into Provence, along the two banks of the Saone and
the left bank of the Rhone, and also in Switzerland. In 451 the arrival in
Gaul of the Huns and their king Attila—already famous, both king and
nation, for their wild habits, their fierce valor, and their successes
against the Eastern empire—gravely complicated the situation. The
common interest of resistance against the most barbarous of barbarians,
and the renown and energy of Aetius, united, for the moment, the old and
new masters of Gaul; Romans, Gauls, Visigoths, Burgundians, Franks, Alans,
Saxons, and Britons, formed the army led by Aetius against that of Attila,
who also had in his ranks Goths, Burgundians, Gepidians, Alans, and beyond
Rhine Franks, gathered together and enlisted on his road. It was a chaos
and a conflict of barbarians, of every name and race, disputing one with
another, pell-mell, the remnants of the Roman empire torn asunder and in
dissolution. Attila had already arrived before Orleans, and was laying
siege to it. The bishop, St. Anianus, sustained a while the courage of the
besieged, by promising them aid from Aetius and his allies. The aid was
slow to come; and the bishop sent to Aetius a message: “If thou be not
here this very day, my son, it will be too late.” Still Aetius came not.
The people of Orleans determined to surrender; the gates flew open; the
Huns entered; the plundering began without much disorder; “wagons were
stationed to receive the booty as it was taken from the houses, and the
captives, arranged in groups, were divided by lot between the victorious
chieftains.” Suddenly a shout re-echoed through the streets: it was
Aetius, Theodoric, and Thorismund, his son, who were coming with the
eagles of the Roman legions and with the banners of the Visigoths. A fight
took place between them and the Huns, at first on the banks of the Loire,
and then in the streets of the city. The people of Orleans joined their
liberators; the danger was great for the Huns, and Attila ordered a
retreat. It was the 14th of June, 451, and that day was for a long while
celebrated in the church of Orleans, as the date of a signal deliverance.
The Huns retired towards Champagne, which they had already crossed at
their coming into Gaul; and when they were before Troyes, the bishop, St.
Lupus, repaired to Attila’s camp, and besought him to spare a defenceless
city, which had neither walls nor garrison. “So be it!” answered Attila;
“but thou shalt come with me and see the Rhine; I promise then to send
thee back again.” With mingled prudence and superstition, the barbarian
meant to keep the holy man as a hostage. The Huns arrived at the plains
hard by Chalons-sur-Marne; Aetius and all his allies had followed them;
and Attila, perceiving that a battle was inevitable, halted in a position
for delivering it. The Gothic historian Jornandes says that he consulted
his priests, who answered that the Huns would be beaten, but that the
general of the enemy would fall in the fight. In this prophecy Attila saw
predicted the death of Aetius, his most formidable enemy; and the struggle
commenced. There is no precise information about the date; but “it was,”
says Jornandes, “a battle which for atrocity, multitude, horror, and
stubbornness has not the like in the records of antiquity.” Historians
vary in their exaggerations of the numbers engaged and killed: according
to some, three hundred thousand, according to others, one hundred and
sixty-two thousand were left on the field of battle. Theodoric, King of
the Visigoths, was killed. Some chroniclers name Meroveus as King of the
Franks, settled in Belgica, near Tongres, who formed part of the army of
Aetius. They even attribute to him a brilliant attack made on the eve of
the battle upon the Gepidians, allies of the Huns, when ninety thousand
men fell, according to some, and only fifteen thousand according to
others. The numbers are purely imaginary, and even the fact is doubtful.
However, the battle of Chalons drove the Huns out of Gaul, and was the
last victory in Gaul, gained still in the name of the Roman empire, but in
reality for the advantage of the German nations which had already
conquered it. Twenty-four years afterwards the very name of Roman empire
disappeared with Augustulus, the last of the emperors of the West.
Thirty years after the battle of Chalons, the Franks settled in Gaul were
not yet united as one nation; several tribes with this name, independent
one of another, were planted between the Rhine and the Somme; there were
some in the environs of Cologne, Calais, Cambrai, even beyond the Seine
and as far as Le Mans, on the confines of the Britons. This is one of the
reasons of the confusion that prevails in the ancient chronicles about the
chieftains or kings of these tribes, their names and dates, and the extent
and site of their possessions. Pharamond, Clodion, Meroveus, and Childeric
cannot be considered as Kings of France, and placed at the beginning of
her history. If they are met with in connection with historical facts,
fabulous legends or fanciful traditions are mingled with them: Priam
appears as a predecessor of Pharamond; Clodion, who passes for having been
the first to bear and transmit to the Frankish kings the title of
“long-haired,” is represented as the son, at one time of Pharamond, at
another, of another chieftain named Theodemer; romantic adventures,
spoiled by geographical mistakes, adorn the life of Childric. All that can
be distinctly affirmed is, that, from A.D. 450 to 480, the two principal
Frankish tribes were those of the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks,
settled, the latter in the east of Belgica, on the banks of the Moselle
and the Rhine; the former, towards the west, between the Meuse, the ocean,
and the Somme. Meroveus, whose name was perpetuated in his line, was one
of the principal chieftains of the Salian Franks; and his son Childeric,
who resided at Tournay, where his tomb was discovered in 1655, was the
father of Clovis, who succeeded him in 481, and with whom really commenced
the kingdom and history of France.
Clovis was fifteen or sixteen years old when he became King of the Salian
Franks of Tournay. Five years afterwards his ruling passion, ambition,
exhibited itself, together with that mixture of boldness and craft which
was to characterize his whole life. He had two neighbors: one, hostile to
the Franks, the Roman patrician Syagrius, who was left master at Soissons
after the death of his father AEgidius, and whom Gregory of Tours calls
“King of the Romans;” the other, a Salian-Frankish chieftain, just as
Clovis was, and related to him, Ragnacaire, who was settled at Cambrai.
Clovis induced Ragnacaire to join him in a campaign against Syagrius. They
fought, and Syagrius was driven to take refuge in Southern Gaul with
Alaric, king of the Visigoths. Clovis, not content with taking possession
of Soissons, and anxious to prevent any troublesome return, demanded of
Alaric to send Syagrius back to him, threatening war if the request were
refused. The Goth, less bellicose than the Frank, delivered up Syagrius to
the envoys of Clovis, who immediately had him secretly put to death,
settled himself at Soissons, and from thence set on foot, in the country
between the Aisne and the Loire, plundering and subjugating expeditions
which speedily increased his domains and his wealth, and extended far and
wide his fame as well as his ambition. The Franks who accompanied him were
not long before they also felt the growth of his power; like him they were
pagans, and the treasures of the Christian churches counted for a great
deal in the booty they had to divide. On one of their expeditions they had
taken in the church of Rheims, amongst other things, a vase “of marvellous
size and beauty.” The Bishop of Rheims, St. Remi, was not quite a stranger
to Clovis. Some years before, when he had heard that the son of Childeric
had become king of the Franks of Tournai, he had written to congratulate
him: “We are informed,” said he, “that thou halt undertaken the conduct of
affairs; it is no marvel that thou beginnest to be what thy fathers ever
were;” and, whilst taking care to put himself on good terms with the young
pagan chieftain, the bishop added to his felicitations some pious
Christian counsel, without letting any attempt at conversion be mixed up
with his moral exhortations. The bishop, informed of the removal of the
vase, sent to Clovis a messenger begging the return, if not of all his
church’s ornaments, at any rate of that. “Follow us as far as Soissons,”
said Clovis to the messenger; “it is there the partition is to take place
of what we have captured: when the lots shall have given me the vase, I
will do what the bishop demands.” When Soissons was reached, and all the
booty had been placed in the midst of the host, the king said, “Valiant
warriors, I pray you not to refuse me, over and above my share, this vase
here.” At these words of the king, those who were of sound mind amongst
the assembly answered, “Glorious king, everything we see here is thine,
and we ourselves are submissive to thy commands. Do thou as seemeth good
to thee, for there is none that can resist thy power.” When they had thus
spoken a certain Frank, light-minded, jealous, and vain, cried out aloud
as he struck the vase with his battle-axe, “Thou shalt have nought of all
this save what the lots shall truly give thee.” At these words all were
astounded; but the king bore the insult with sweet patience, and,
accepting the vase, he gave it to the messenger, hiding his wound in the
recesses of his heart. At the end of a year he ordered all his host to
assemble fully equipped at the March parade, to have their arms inspected.
After having passed in review all the other warriors, he came to him who
had struck the vase. “None,” said he, “hath brought hither arms so ill
kept as thine; nor lance, nor sword, nor battle-axe are in condition for
service.” And wresting from him his axe he flung it on the ground. The man
stooped down a little to pick it up, and forthwith the king, raising with
both hands his own battle-axe, drove it into his skull, saying, “Thus
didst thou to the vase of Soissons!” On the death of this fellow he bade
the rest begone; and by this act made himself greatly feared.
A bold and unexpected deed has always a great effect on men: with his
Frankish warriors, as well as with his Roman and Gothic foes, Clovis had
at command the instincts of patience and brutality in turn: he could bear
a mortification and take vengeance in due season. Whilst prosecuting his
course of plunder and war in Eastern Belgica, on the banks of the Meuse,
Clovis was inspired with a wish to get married. He had heard tell of a
young girl, like himself of the Germanic royal line, Clotilde, niece of
Gondebaud, at that time king of the Burgundians. She was dubbed beautiful,
wise, and well-informed; but her situation was melancholy and perilous.
Ambition and fraternal hatred had devastated her family. Her father,
Chilperic, and her two brothers, had been put to death by her uncle
Gondebaud, who had caused her mother Agrippina to be thrown into the
Rhone, with a stone round her neck; and drowned. Two sisters alone had
survived this slaughter; the elder, Chrona, had taken religions vows, the
other, Clotilde, was living almost in exile at Geneva, absorbed in works
of piety and charity. The principal historian of this epoch, Gregory of
Tours, an almost contemporary authority, for he was elected bishop
sixty-two years after the death of Clovis, says simply,
“Clovis at once sent a deputation to Gondebaud to ask Clotilde in
marriage. Gondebaud, not daring to refuse, put her into the hands of the
envoys, who took her promptly to the king. Clovis at sight of her was
transported with joy, and married her.” But to this short account other
chroniclers, amongst them Fredegaire, who wrote a commentary upon and a
continuation of Gregory of Tours’ work, added details which deserve
reproduction, first as a picture of manners, next for the better
understanding of history. “As he was not allowed to see Clotilde,” says
Fredegaire, “Clovis charged a certain Roman, named Aurelian, to use all
his wit to come nigh her. Aurelian repaired alone to the spot, clothed in
rags and with his wallet upon his back, like a mendicant. To insure
confidence in himself he took with him the ring of Clovis. On his arrival
at Geneva, Clotilde received him as a pilgrim charitably, and, whilst she
was washing his feet, Aurelian, bending towards her, said under his
breath, ‘Lady, I have great matters to announce to thee if thou deign to
permit me secret revelation.’ She consenting, replied, ‘Say on.’ ‘Clovis,
king of the Franks,’ said he, ‘hath sent me to thee: if it be the will of
God, he would fain raise thee to his high rank by marriage; and that thou
mayest be certified thereof, he sendeth thee this ring.’ She accepted the
ring with great joy, and said to Aurelian, ‘Take for recompense of thy
pains these hundred sous in gold and this ring of mine. Return promptly to
thy lord; if he would fain unite me to him by marriage, let him send
without delay messengers to demand me of my uncle Gondebaud, and let the
messengers who shall come take me away in haste, so soon as they shall
have obtained permission; if they haste not, I fear lest a certain sage,
one Aridius, may return from Constantinople, and if he arrive beforehand,
all this matter will by his counsel come to nought.’ Aurelian returned in
the same disguise under which he had come. On approaching the territory of
Orleans, and at no great distance from his house, he had taken as
travelling companion a certain poor mendicant, by whom he, having fallen
asleep from sheer fatigue, and thinking himself safe, was robbed of his
wallet and the hundred sous in gold that it contained. On awaking,
Aurelian was sorely vexed, ran swiftly home and sent his servants in all
directions in search of the mendicant who had stolen his wallet. He was
found and brought to Aurelian, who, after drubbing him soundly for three
days, let him go his way. He afterwards told Clovis all that had passed
and what Clotilde suggested. Clovis, pleased with his success and with
Clotilde’s notion, at once sent a deputation to Gondebaud to demand his
niece in marriage. Gondebaud, not daring to refuse, and flattered at the
idea of making a friend of Clovis, promised to give her to him. Then the
deputation, having offered the denier and the sou, according to the custom
of the Franks, espoused Clotilde in the name of Clovis, and demanded that
she be given up to them to be married. Without any delay the council was
assembled at Chalons, and preparations made for the nuptials. The Franks,
having arrived with all speed, received her from the hands of Gondebaud,
put her into a covered carriage, and escorted her to Clovis, together with
much treasure. She, however, having already learned that Aridius was on
his way back, said to the Frankish lords, “If ye would take me into the
presence of your lord, let me descend from this carriage, mount me on
horseback, and get you hence as fast as ye may; for never in this carriage
shall I reach the presence of your lord.”
“Aridius, in fact, returned very speedily from Marseilles, and Gondebaud,
on seeing him, said to him, ‘Thou knowest that we have made friends with
the Franks, and that I have given my niece to Clovis to wife.’ ‘This,’
answered Aridius, ‘is no bond of friendship, but the beginning of
perpetual strife; thou shouldst have remembered, my lord, that thou didst
slay Clotilde’s father, thy brother Chilperic, that thou didst drown her
mother, and that thou didst cut off her brothers’ heads and cast their
bodies into a well. If Clotilde become powerful she will avenge the wrongs
of her relatives. Send thou forthwith a troop in chase, and have her
brought back to thee. It will be easier for thee to bear the wrath of one
person, than to be perpetually at strife, thyself and thine, with all the
Franks.’ And Gondebaud did send forthwith a troop in chase to fetch back
Clotilde with the carriage and all the treasure; but she, on approaching
Villers, where Clovis was waiting for her, in the territory of Troyes, and
before passing the Burgundian frontier, urged them who escorted her to
disperse right and left over a space of twelve leagues in the country
whence she was departing, to plunder and burn; and that having been done
with the permission of Clovis, she cried aloud, ‘I thank thee, God
omnipotent, for that I see the commencement of vengeance for my parents
and my brethren!’”
The majority of the learned have regarded this account of Fredegaire as a
romantic fable, and have declined to give it a place in history. M.
Fauriel, one of the most learned associates of the Academy of
Inscriptions, has given much the same opinion, but he nevertheless adds,
“Whatever may be their authorship, the fables in question are historic in
the sense that they relate to real facts of which they are a poetical
expression, a romantic development, conceived with the idea of
popularizing the Frankish kings amongst the Gallo-Roman subjects.” It
cannot, however, be admitted that a desire to popularize the Frankish
kings is a sufficient and truth-like explanation of these tales of the
Gallo-Roman chroniclers, or that they are no more than “a poetical
expression,” a romantic development of the real facts briefly noted by
Gregory of Tours; the tales have a graver origin and contain more truth
than would be presumed from some of the anecdotes and sayings mixed up
with them. In the condition of minds and parties in Gaul at the end of the
fifth century the marriage of Clovis and Clotilde was, for the public of
the period, for the barbarians and for the Gallo-Romans, a great matter.
Clovis and the Franks were still pagans; Gondebaud and the Burgundians
were Christians, but Arians; Clotilde was a Catholic Christian. To which
of the two, Catholics or Arians, would Clovis ally himself? To whom,
Arian, pagan, or Catholic, would Clotilde be married? Assuredly the
bishops, priests, and all the Gallo-Roman clergy, for the most part
Catholics, desired to see Clovis, that young and audacious Frankish
chieftain, take to wife a Catholic rather than an Arian or a pagan, and
hoped to convert the pagan Clovis to Christianity much more than an Arian
to orthodoxy.
The question between Catholic orthodoxy and Arianism was, at that time, a
vital question for Christianity in its entirety, and St. Athanasius was
not wrong in attributing to it supreme importance. It may be presumed that
the Catholic clergy, the bishop of Rheims, or the bishop of Langres, were
no strangers to the repeated praises which turned the thoughts of the
Frankish king towards the Burgundian princess, and the idea of their
marriage once set afloat, the Catholics, priesthood or laity, labored
undoubtedly to push it forward, whilst the Burgundian Arians exerted
themselves to prevent it. Thus there took place, between opposing
influences, religious and national, a most animated struggle. No
astonishment can be felt, then, at the obstacles the marriage encountered,
at the complications mingled with it, and at the indirect means employed
on both sides to cause its success or failure. The account of Fredegaire
is but a picture of this struggle and its incidents, a little amplified or
altered by imagination or the credulity of the period; but the essential
features of the picture, the disguise of Aurelian, the hurry of Clotilde,
the prudent recollection of Aridius, Gondebaud’s alternations of fear and
violence, and Clotilde’s vindictive passion when she is once out of
danger, there is nothing in all this out of keeping with the manners of
the time or the position of the actors. Let it be added that Aurelian and
Aridius are real personages who are met with elsewhere in history, and
whose parts as played on the occasion of Clotilde’s marriage are in
harmony with the other traces that remain of their lives.
The consequences of the marriage justified before long the importance
which had on all sides been attached to it. Clotilde had a son; she was
anxious to have him baptized, and urged her husband to consent. “The gods
you worship,” said she, “are nought, and can do nought for themselves or
others; they are of wood, or stone, or metal.” Clovis resisted, saying,
“It is by the command of our gods that all things are created and brought
forth. It is plain that your God hath no power; there is no proof even
that He is of the race of the gods.” But Clotilde prevailed; and she had
her son baptized solemnly, hoping that the striking nature of the ceremony
might win to the faith the father whom her words and prayers had been
powerless to touch. The child soon died, and Clovis bitterly reproached
the queen, saying, “Had the child been dedicated to my gods he would be
alive; he was baptized in the name of your God, and he could not live.”
Clotilde defended her God and prayed. She had a second son, who was also
baptized, and fell sick. “It cannot be otherwise with him than with his
brother,” said Clovis; “baptized in the name of your Christ, he is going
to die.” But the child was cured, and lived; and Clovis was pacified and
less incredulous of Christ. An event then came to pass which affected him
still more than the sickness or cure of his children. In 496 the
Allemannians, a Germanic confederation like the Franks, who also had been,
for some time past, assailing the Roman empire on the banks of the Rhine
or the frontiers of Switzerland, crossed the river, and invaded the
settlements of the Franks on the left bank. Clovis went to the aid of his
confederation and attacked the Allemannians at Tolbiac, near Cologne. He
had with him Aurelian, who had been his messenger to Clotilde, whom he had
made Duke of Melun, and who commanded the forces of Sens. The battle was
going ill; the Franks were wavering, and Clovis was anxious. Before
setting out he had, according to Fredegaire, promised his wife that if he
were victorious he would turn Christian. Other chroniclers say that
Aurelian, seeing the battle in danger of being lost, said to Clovis, “My
lord king, believe only on the Lord of heaven whom the queen, my mistress,
preacheth.” Clovis cried out with emotion, “Christ Jesus, Thou whom my
queen Clotilde calleth the Son of the living God; I have invoked my own
gods, and they have withdrawn from me; I believe that they have no power,
since they aid not those who call upon them. Thee, very God and Lord, I
invoke; if Thou give me victory over these foes, if I find in Thee the
power that the people proclaim of Thee, I will believe on Thee, and will
be baptized in Thy name.” The tide of battle turned: the Franks recovered
confidence and courage; and the Allemannians, beaten and seeing their king
slain, surrendered themselves to Clovis, saying, “Cease, of thy grace, to
cause any more of our people to perish; for we are thine.”
On the return of Clovis, Clotilde, fearing he should forget his victory
and his promise, “secretly sent,” says Gregory of Tours, “to St. Remi,
bishop of Rheims, and prayed him to penetrate the king’s heart, with the
words of salvation.” St. Remi was a fervent Christian and an able bishop;
and “I will listen to thee, most holy father,” said Clovis, “willingly;
but there is a difficulty. The people that follow me will not give up
their gods. But I am about to assemble them, and will speak to them
according to thy word.” The king found the people more docile or better
prepared than he had represented to the bishop. Even before he opened his
mouth the greater part of those present cried out, “We abjure the mortal
gods; we are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remi preacheth.” About
three thousand Frankish warriors, however, persisted in their intention of
remaining pagans, and deserting Clovis, betook themselves to Ragnacaire,
the Frankish king of Cambrai, who was destined ere long to pay dearly for
this acquisition. So soon as St. Remi was informed of this good
disposition on the part of king and people, he fixed Christmas Day of this
year, 496, for the ceremony of the baptism of these grand neophytes. The
description of it is borrowed from the historian of the church of Rheims,
Frodoard by name, born at the close of the ninth century. He gathered
together the essential points of it from the Life of Saint Remi,
written, shortly before that period, by the saint’s celebrated successor
at Rheims, Archbishop Hincmar. “The bishop,” says he, “went in search of
the king at early morn in his bed-chamber, in order that, taking him at
the moment of freedom from secular cares, he might more freely communicate
to him the mysteries of the holy word. The king’s chamber-people receive
him with great respect, and the king himself runs forward to meet him.
Thereupon they pass together into an oratory dedicated to St. Peter, chief
of the apostles, and adjoining the king’s apartment. When the bishop, the
king, and the queen had taken their places on the seats prepared for them,
and admission had been given to some clerics and also some friends and
household servants of the king, the venerable bishop began his
instructions on the subject of salvation. . . . Meanwhile preparations are
being made along the road from the palace to the baptistery; curtains and
valuable stuffs are hung up; the houses on either side of the street are
dressed out; the baptistery is sprinkled with balm and all manner of
perfume. The procession moves from the palace; the clergy lead the way
with the holy gospels, the cross, and standards, singing hymns and
spiritual songs; then comes the bishop, leading the king by the hand;
after him the queen, lastly the people. On the road it is said that the
king asked the bishop if that were the kingdom promised him: ‘No,’
answered the prelate, ‘but it is the entrance to the road that leads to
it.’ . . . At the moment when the king bent his head over the fountain of
life, ‘Lower thy head with humility, Sicambrian,’ cried the eloquent
bishop; ‘adore what thou hast burned: burn what thou hast adored.’ The
king’s two sisters, Alboflede and Lantechilde, likewise received baptism;
and so at the same time did three thousand of the Frankish army, besides a
large number of women and children.”
When it was known that Clovis had been baptized by St. Remi, and with what
striking circumstance, great was the satisfaction amongst the Catholics.
The chief Burgundian prelate, Avitus, bishop of Vienne, wrote to the
Frankish king, “Your faith is our victory; in choosing for you and yours,
you have pronounced for all; divine providence bath given you as arbiter
to our age. Greece can boast of having a sovereign of our persuasion; but
she is no longer alone in possession of this precious gift; the rest of
the world cloth share her light.” Pope Anastasius hasted to express his
joy to Clovis: “The Church, our common mother,” he wrote, “rejoiceth to
have born unto God so great a king. Continue, glorious and illustrious
son, to cheer the heart of this tender mother; be a column of iron to
support her, and she in her turn will give thee victory over all thine
enemies.”
Clovis was not a man to omit turning his Catholic popularity to the
account of his ambition. At the very time when he was receiving these
testimonies of good will from the heads of the Church, he learned that
Gondebaud, disquieted, no doubt, at the conversion of his powerful
neighbor, had just made a vain attempt, at a conference held at Lyons, to
reconcile in his kingdom the Catholics and the Arians. Clovis considered
the moment favorable to his projects of aggrandizement at the expense of
the Burgundian king; he fomented the dissensions which already prevailed
between Gondebaud and his brother Godegisile, assured to himself the
latter’s complicity, and suddenly entered Burgundy with his army.
Gondebaud, betrayed and beaten at the first encounter at Dijon, fled to
the south of his kingdom, and went and shut himself up in Avignon. Clovis
pursued and besieged him there. Gondebaud in great alarm asked counsel of
his Roman confidant Aridius, who had but lately foretold to him what the
marriage of his niece Clotilde would bring upon him. “On every side,” said
the king, “I am encompassed by perils, and I know not what to do; lo! here
be these barbarians come upon us to slay us and destroy the land.” “To
escape death,” answered Aridius, “thou must appease the ferocity of this
man. Now, if it please thee, I will feign to fly from thee and go over to
him. So soon as I shall be with him, I will so do that he ruin neither
thee nor the land. Only have thou care to perform whatsoever I shall ask
of thee, until the Lord in His goodness deign to make thy cause triumph.”
“All that thou shalt bid will I do,” said Gondebaud. So Aridius left
Gondebaud and went his way to Clovis, and said, “Most pious king, I am thy
humble servant; I give up this wretched Gondebaud, and come unto thy
mightiness. If thy goodness deign to cast a glance upon me, thou and thy
descendants will find in me a servant of integrity and fidelity.” Clovis
received him very kindly and kept him by him, for Aridius was agreeable in
conversation, wise in counsel, just in judgment, and faithful in whatever
was committed to his care. As the siege continued, Aridius said to Clovis,
“O king, if the glory of thy greatness would suffer thee to listen to the
words of my feebleness, though thou needest not counsel, I would submit
them to thee in all fidelity, and they might be of use to thee, whether
for thyself or for the towns by the which thou dost propose to pass.
Wherefore keepest thou here thine army, whilst thine enemy doth hide
himself in a well-fortified place? Thou ravagest the fields, thou
pillagest the corn, thou cuttest down the vines, thou fellest the olive
trees, thou destroyest all the produce of the land, and yet thou
succeedest not in destroying thine adversary. Rather send thou unto him
deputies, and lay on him a tribute to be paid to thee every year. Thus the
land will be preserved, and thou wilt be lord forever over him who owes
thee tribute. If he refuse, thou shalt then do what pleaseth thee.” Clovis
found the counsel good, ordered his army to return home, sent deputies to
Gondebaud, and called upon him to undertake the payment every year of a
fixed tribute. Gondebaud paid for the time, and promised to pay punctually
for the future. And peace appeared made between the two barbarians.
Pleased with his campaign against the Burgundians, Clovis kept on good
terms with Gondebaud, who was to be henceforth a simple tributary, and
transferred to the Visigoths of Aquitania, and their king, Alaric II., his
views of conquest. He had there the same pretexts for attack and the same
means of success. Alaric and his Visigoths were Arians, and between them
and the bishops of Southern Gaul, nearly all orthodox Catholics, there
were permanent ill-will and distrust. Alaric attempted to conciliate their
good-will: in 506 a Council met at Agde; the thirty-four bishops of
Aquitania attended in person or by delegate; the king protested that he
had no design of persecuting the Catholics; the bishops, at the opening of
the Council, offered prayers for the king; but Alaric did not forget that
immediately after the conversion of Clovis, Volusian, bishop of Tours, had
conspired in favor of the Frankish king, and the bishops of Aquitania
regarded Volusian as a martyr, for he had been deposed, without trial,
from his see, and taken as a prisoner first to Toulouse, and afterwards
into Spain, where in a short time he had been put to death. In vain did
the glorious chief of the race of Goths, Theodoric the Great, king of
Italy, father-in-law of Alaric, and brother- in-law of Clovis, exert
himself to prevent any outbreak between the two kings. In 498, Alaric, no
doubt at his father-in-law’s solicitation, wrote to Clovis, “If my brother
consent thereto, I would, following my desires and by the grace of God,
have an interview with him.” The interview took place at a small island in
the Loire, called the Island d’Or or de St. Jean, near Amboise. “The two
kings,” says Gregory of Tours, “conversed, ate, and drank together, and
separated with mutual promises of friendship.” The positions and passions
of each soon made the promises of no effect. In 505 Clovis was seriously
ill; the bishops of Aquitania testified warm interest in him; and one of
them, Quintian, bishop of Rodez, being on this account persecuted by the
Visigoths, had to seek refuge at Clermont, in Auvergne. Clovis no longer
concealed his designs. In 507 he assembled his principal chieftains; and,
“It displeaseth me greatly,” said he, “that these Arians should possess a
portion of the Gauls; march we forth with the help of God, drive we them
from that land, for it is very goodly, and bring we it under our own
power.” The Franks applauded their king; and the army set out on the march
in the direction of Poitiers, where Alaric happened at that time to be.
“As a portion of the troops was crossing the territory of Tours,” says
Gregory, who was shortly afterwards its bishop, “Clovis forbade, out of
respect for St. Martin, anything to be taken, save grass and water. One of
the army, however, having found some hay belonging to a poor man, said,
‘This is grass; we do not break the king’s commands by taking it;’ and, in
spite of the poor man’s resistance, he robbed him of his hay. Clovis,
informed of the fact, slew the soldier on the spot with one sweep of his
sword, saying, ‘What will become of our hopes of victory if we offend St.
Martin?’” Alaric had prepared for the struggle; and the two armies met in
the plain of Vouille, on the banks of the little river Clain, a few
leagues from Poitiers. The battle was very severe. “The Goths,” says
Gregory of Tours, “fought with missiles; the Franks sword in hand. Clovis
met and with his own hand slew Alaric in the fray; at the moment of
striking his blow, two Goths fell suddenly upon Clovis, and attacked him
with their pikes on either side, but he escaped death, thanks to his
cuirass and the agility of his horse.”
Beaten and kingless, the Goths retreated in great disorder; and Clovis,
pursuing his march, arrived without opposition at Bordeaux, where he
settled down with his Franks for the winter. When the war season returned,
he marched on Toulouse, the capital of the Visigoths, which he likewise
occupied without resistance, and where he seized a portion of the treasure
of the Visigothic kings. He quitted it to lay siege to Carcassonne, which
had been made by the Romans into the stronghold of Septimauia.
There his course of conquest was destined to end. After the battle of
Vouille he had sent his eldest son Theodoric in command of a division,
with orders to cross Central Gaul from west to east, to go and join the
Burgundians of Gondebaud, who had promised his assistance, and in
conjunction with them to attack the Visigoths on the banks of the Rhone
and in Narbonness. The young Frank boldly executed his father’s orders,
but the intervention of Theodoric the Great, king of Italy, prevented the
success of the operation. He sent an army into Gaul to the aid of his
son-in-law Alaric; and the united Franks and Burgundians failed in their
attacks upon the Visigoths of the Eastern Provinces. Clovis had no idea of
compromising by his obstinacy the conquests already accomplished; he
therefore raised the siege of Carcassonne, returned first to Toulouse, and
then to Bordeaux, took Angouleme, the only town of importance he did not
possess in Aquitania; and feeling reasonably sure that the Visigoths, who,
even with the aid that had cone from Italy, had great difficulty in
defending what remained to them of Southern Gaul, would not come and
dispute with him what he had already conquered, he halted at Tours, and
staid there some time, to enjoy on the very spot the fruits of his victory
and to establish his power in his new possessions.
It appears that even the Britons of Armorica tendered to him at that time,
through the interposition of Melanins, bishop of Rennes, if not their
actual submission, at any rate their subordination and homage.
Clovis at the same time had his self-respect flattered in a manner to
which barbaric conquerors always attach great importance. Anastasius,
Emperor of the East, with whom he had already had some communication, sent
to him at Tours a solemn embassy, bringing him the titles and insignia of
Patrician and Consul. “Clovis,” says Gregory of Tours, “put on the tunic
of purple and the chlamys and the diadem; then mounting his horse, he
scattered with his own hand and with much bounty gold and silver amongst
the people, on the road which lies between the gate of the court belonging
to the basilica of St. Martin and the church of the city. From that day he
was called Consul and Augustus. On leaving the city of Tours he repaired
to Paris, where he fixed the seat of his government.”
Paris was certainly the political centre of his dominions, the
intermediate point between the early settlements of his race and himself
in Gaul and his new Gallic conquests; but he lacked some of the
possessions nearest to him and most naturally, in his own opinion, his. To
the east, north, and south-west of Paris were settled some independent
Frankish tribes, governed by chieftains with the name of kings. So soon as
he had settled at Paris, it was the one fixed idea of Clovis to reduce
them all to subjection. He had conquered the Burgundians and the
Visigoths; it remained for him to conquer and unite together all the
Franks. The barbarian showed himself in his true colors, during this new
enterprise, with his violence, his craft, his cruelty, and his perfidy. He
began with the most powerful of the tribes, the Ripuarian Franks. He sent
secretly to Cloderic, son of Sigebert, their king, saying, “Thy father
hath become old, and his wound maketh him to limp o’ one foot; if he
should die, his kingdom will come to thee of right, together with our
friendship.” Cloderic had his father assassinated whilst asleep in his
tent, and sent messengers to Clovis, saying, “My father is dead, and I
have in my power his kingdom and his treasures. Send thou unto me certain
of thy people, and I will gladly give into their hands whatsoever amongst
these treasures shall seem like to please thee.” The envoys of Clovis
came, and, as they were examining in detail the treasures of Sigebert,
Cloderic said to them, “This is the coffer wherein my father was wont to
pile up his gold pieces.” “Plunge,” said they, “thy hand right to the
bottom that none escape thee.” Cloderic bent forward, and one of the
envoys lifted his battle-axe and cleft his skull. Clovis went to Cologne
and convoked the Franks of the canton. “Learn,” said he, “that which hath
happened. As I was sailing on the river Scheldt, Cloderic, son of my
relative, did vex his father, saying I was minded to slay him; and as
Sigebert was flying across the forest of Buchaw, his son himself sent
bandits, who fell upon him and slew him. Cloderic also is dead, smitten I
know not by whom as he was opening his father’s treasures. I am altogether
unconcerned in it all, and I could not shed the blood of my relatives, for
it is a crime. But since it hath so happened, I give unto you counsel,
which ye shall follow if it seem to you good; turn ye towards me, and live
under my protection.” And they who were present hoisted him on a huge
buckler, and hailed him king.
After Sigebert and the Ripuarian Franks, came the Franks of Terouanne, and
Chararic their king. He had refused, twenty years before, to march with
Clovis against the Roman, Syagrius. Clovis, who had not forgotten it,
attacked him, took him and his son prisoners, and had them both shorn,
ordering that Chararic should be ordained priest and his son deacon.
Chararic was much grieved. Then said his son to him, “Here be branches
which were cut from a green tree, and are not yet wholly dried up: soon
they will sprout forth again. May it please God that he who hath wrought
all this shall die as quickly!” Clovis considered these words as a menace,
had both father and son beheaded, and took possession of their dominions.
Ragnacaire, king of the Franks of Cambrai, was the third to be attacked.
He had served Clovis against Syagrins, but Clovis took no account of that.
Ragnacaire, being beaten, was preparing for flight, when he was seized by
his own soldiers, who tied his hands behind his back, and took him to
Clovis along with his brother Riquier. “Wherefore hast thou dishonored our
race,” said Clovis, “by letting thyself wear bonds?” “Twere better to have
died;” and cleft his skull with one stroke of his battle-axe. Then turning
to Riquier, “Hadst thou succored thy brother,” said he, “he had assuredly
not been bound;” and felled him likewise at his feet. Rignomer, king of
the Franks of Le Mans, met the same fate, but not at the hands, only by
the order, of Clovis. So Clovis remained sole king of the Franks, for all
the independent chieftains had disappeared.
It is said that one day, after all these murders, Clovis, surrounded by
his trusted servants, cried, “Woe is me! who am left as a traveller
amongst strangers, and who have no longer relatives to lend me support in
the day of adversity!” Thus do the most shameless take pleasure in
exhibiting sham sorrow after crimes they cannot disavow.
It cannot be known whether Clovis ever felt in his soul any scruple or
regret for his many acts of ferocity and perfidy, or if he looked, as
sufficient expiation, upon the favor he had bestowed on the churches and
their bishops, upon the gifts he lavished on them, and upon the
absolutions he demanded of them. In times of mingled barbarism and faith
there are strange cases of credulity in the way of bargains made with
divine justice. We read in the life of St. Eleutherus, bishop of Tournai,
the native land of Clovis, that at one of those periods when the
conscience of the Frankish king must have been most heavily laden, he
presented himself one day at the church. “My lord king,” said the bishop,
“I know wherefore thou art come to me.” “I have nothing special to say
unto thee,” rejoined Clovis. “Say not so, O king,” replied the bishop;
“thou hast sinned, and darest not avow it.” The king was moved, and ended
by confessing that he had deeply sinned and had need of large pardon. St.
Eleutherus betook himself to prayer; the king came back the next day, and
the bishop gave him a paper on which was written by a divine hand, he
said, “The pardon granted to royal offences which might not be revealed.”
Clovis accepted this absolution, and loaded the church of Tournai with his
gifts. In 511, the very year of his death, his last act in life was the
convocation at Orleans of a Council, which was attended by thirty bishops
from the different parts of his kingdom, and at which were adopted
thirty-one canons that, whilst granting to the Church great privileges and
means of influence, in many cases favorable to humanity and respect for
the rights of individuals, bound the Church closely to the State, and gave
to royalty, even in ecclesiastical matters, great power. The bishops, on
breaking up, sent these canons to Clovis, praying him to give them the
sanction of his adhesion, which he did. A few months afterwards, on the
27th of November, 511, Clovis died at Paris, and was buried in the church
of St. Peter and St. Paul, nowadays St. Genevieve, built by his wife Queen
Clotilde, who survived him.
It was but right to make the reader intimately acquainted with that great
barbarian who, with all his vices and all his crimes, brought about, or
rather began, two great matters which have already endured through
fourteen centuries, and still endure; for he founded the French monarchy
and Christian France. Such men and such facts have a right to be closely
studied and set in a clear light by history. Nothing similar will be seen
for two centuries, under the descendants of Clovis, the Merovingians;
amongst them will be encountered none but those personages whom death
reduces to insignificance, whatever may have been their rank in the world,
and of whom Virgil thus speaks to Dante:—
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MEROVINGIANS.
In its beginning and in its end the line of the Merovingians is mediocre
and obscure. Its earliest ancestors, Meroveus, from whom it got its name,
and Clodion, the first, it is said, of the long-haired kings, a
characteristic title of the Frankish kings, are scarcely historical
personages; and it is under the qualification of sluggard kings that the
last Merovingians have a place in history. Clovis alone, amidst his vices
and his crimes, was sufficiently great and did sufficiently great deeds to
live forever in the course of ages; the greatest part of his successors
belong only to genealogy or chronology. In a moment of self-abandonment
and weariness, the great Napoleon once said, “What trouble to take for
half a page in universal history!” Histories far more limited and modest
than a universal history, not only have a right, but are bound to shed
their light only upon those men who have deserved it by the eminence of
their talents or the important results of their passage through life;
rarity only can claim to escape oblivion. And save two or three, a little
less insignificant or less hateful than the rest, the Merovingian kings
deserve only to be forgotten. From A.D. 511 to A.D. 752, that is, from the
death of Clovis to the accession of the Carlovingians, is two hundred and
forty-one years, which was the duration of the dynasty of the
Merovingians. During this time there reigned twenty-eight Merovingian
kings, which reduces to eight years and seven months the average reign of
each, a short duration compared with that of most of the royal dynasties.
Five of these kings, Clotaire I., Clotaire II., Dagobert I., Thierry IV.
and Childeric III., alone, at different intervals, united under their
power all the dominions possessed by Clovis or his successors. The other
kings of this line reigned only over special kingdoms, formed by virtue of
divers partitions at the death of their general possessor. From A.D. 511
to 638 five such partitions took place. In 511, after the death of Clovis,
his dominions were divided amongst his four sons; Theodoric, or Thierry
I., was king of Metz; Clodomir, of Orleans; Childebert, of Paris; Clotaire
I., of Soissons. To each of these capitals fixed boundaries were attached.
In 558, in consequence of divers incidents brought about naturally or by
violence, Clotaire I. ended by possessing alone, during three years, all
the dominions of his fathers. At his death, in 561, they were partitioned
afresh amongst his four sons; Charibert was king of Paris; Gontran of
Orleans and Burgundy; Sigebert I., of Metz; and Childeric, of Soissons. In
567, Charibert, king of Paris, died without children, and a new partition
left only three kingdoms, Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy. Austrasia, in
the east, extended over the two banks of the Rhine, and comprised, side by
side with Roman towns and districts, populations that had remained
Germanic. Neustria, in the west, was essentially Gallo-Roman, though it
comprised in the north the old territory of the Salian Franks, on the
borders of the Scheldt. Burgundy was the old kingdom of the Burgundians,
enlarged in the north by some few counties. Paris, the residence of
Clovis, was reserved and undivided amongst the three kings, kept as a sort
of neutral city into which they could not enter without the common consent
of all. In 613, new incidents connected with family matters placed
Clotaire II., son of Chilperic, and heretofore king of Soissons, in
possession of the three kingdoms. He kept them united up to 628, and left
them so to his son, Dagobert I., who remained in possession of them up to
638. At his death a new division of the Frankish dominions took place, no
longer into three but two kingdoms, Austrasia being one, and Neustria and
Burgundy the other. This was the definitive dismemberment of the great
Frankish dominion to the time of its last two Merovingian kings, Thierry
IV. and Childeric III., who were kings in name only, dragged from the
cloister as ghosts from the tomb to play a motionless part in the drama.
For a long time past the real power had been in the hands of that valiant
Austrasian family which was to furnish the dominions of Clovis with a new
dynasty and a greater king than Clovis.
Southern Gaul, that is to say, Aquitania, Vasconia, Narbonness, called
Septimania, and the two banks of the Rhone near its mouths, were not
comprised in these partitions of the Frankish dominions. Each of the
copartitioners assigned to themselves, to the south of the Garonne and on
the coasts of the Mediterranean, in that beautiful region of old Roman
Gaul, such and such a district or such and such a town, just as heirs-at-
law keep to themselves severally such and such a piece of furniture or
such and such a valuable jewel out of a rich property to which they
succeed, and which they divide amongst them. The peculiar situation of
those provinces at their distance from the Franks’ own settlements
contributed much towards the independence which Southern Gaul, and
especially Aquitania, was constantly striving and partly managed to
recover, amidst the extension and tempestuous fortunes of the Frankish
monarchy. It is easy to comprehend how these repeated partitions of a
mighty inheritance with so many successors, these dominions continually
changing both their limits and their masters, must have tended to increase
the already profound anarchy of Roman and Barbaric worlds thrown pell-mell
one upon the other, and fallen a prey, the Roman to the disorganization of
a lingering death, the barbaric to the fermentation of a new existence
striving for development under social conditions quite different from
those of its primitive life. Some historians have said that, in spite of
these perpetual dismemberments of the great Frankish dominion, a real
unity had always existed in the Frankish monarchy, and regulated the
destinies of its constituent peoples. They who say so show themselves
singularly easy to please in the matter of political unity and
international harmony. Amongst those various States, springing from a
common base and subdivided between the different members of one and the
same family, rivalries, enmities, hostile machinations, deeds of violence
and atrocity, struggles and wars soon became as frequent, as bloody, and
as obstinate as they have ever been amongst states and sovereigns as
unconnected as possible one with another. It will suffice to quote one
case which was not long in coming. In 424, scarcely thirteen years after
the death of Clovis and the partition of his dominions amongst his four
sons, the second of them, Clodomir, king of Orleans, was killed in a war
against the Burgundians, leaving three sons, direct heirs of his kingdom,
subject to equal partition between them. Their grandmother, Clotilde, kept
them with her at Paris; and “their uncle Childebert (king of Paris),
seeing that his mother bestowed all her affection upon the sons of
Clodomir, grew jealous; so, fearing that by her favor they would get a
share in the kingdom, he sent secretly to his brother Clotaire (king of
Soissons), saying, ‘Our mother keepeth by her the sons of our brother, and
willeth to give them the kingdom of their father. Thou must needs,
therefore, cone speedily to Paris, and we must take counsel together as to
what shall be done with them; whether they shall be shorn and reduced to
the condition of commoners, or slain and leave their kingdom to be shared
equally between us.’ Clotaire, overcome with joy at these words, came to
Paris. Childebert had already spread abroad amongst the people that the
two kings were to join in raising the young children to the throne. The
two kings then sent a message to the queen, who at that time dwelt in the
same city, saying, ‘Send thou the children to us, that we may place them
on the throne.’ Clotilde, full of joy, and unwitting of their craft, set
meat and drink before the children, and then sent them away, saying, ‘I
shall seem not to have lost my son if I see ye succeed him in his
kingdom.’ The young princes were immediately seized, and parted from their
servants and governors; and the servants and the children were kept in
separate places. Then Childebert and Clotaire sent to the queen their
confidant Arcadius (one of the Arvernian senators), with a pair of shears
and a naked sword. When he came to Clotilde, he showed her what he bare
with him, and said to her, ‘Most glorious queen, thy sons, our masters,
desire to know thy will touching these children: wilt thou that they live
with shorn hair or that they be put to death?’ Clotilde, astounded at this
address, and overcome with indignation, answered at hazard, amidst the
grief that overwhelmed her, and not knowing what she would say, ‘If they
be not set upon the throne I would rather know that they were dead than
shorn.’ But Areadius, caring little for her despair or for what she might
decide after more reflection, returned in haste to the two kings, and
said, ‘Finish ye your work, for the queen, favoring your plans, willeth
that ye accomplish them.’ Forthwith Clotaire taketh the eldest by the arm,
dasheth him upon the ground, and slayeth him without mercy with the thrust
of a hunting-knife beneath the arm-pit. At the cries raised by the child,
his brother casteth himself at the feet of Childebert, and clinging to his
knees, saith amidst his sobs, ‘Aid me, good father, that I die not like my
brother.’ Childebert, his visage bathed in tears, saith to Clotaire, ‘Dear
brother, I crave thy mercy for his life; I will give thee whatsoever thou
wilt as the price of his soul; I pray thee, slay him not.’ Then Clotaire,
with menacing and furious mien, crieth out aloud, ‘Thrust him away, or
thou diest in his stead: thou, the instigator of all this work, art thou,
then, so quick to be faithless?’ At these words Childebert thrust away the
child towards Clotaire, who seized him, plunged a hunting-knife in his
side, as he had in his brother’s, and slew him. They then put to death the
slaves and governors of the children. After these murders Clotaire mounted
his horse and departed, taking little heed of his nephew’s death; and
Childebert withdrew into the outskirts of the city. Queen Clotilde had the
corpses of the two children placed in a coffin, and followed them, with a
great parade of chanting, and immense mourning, to the basilica of St.
Pierre (now St. Genevieve), where they were buried together. One was ten
years old and the other seven. The third, named Clodoald (who died about
the year 560, after having founded, near Paris, a monastery called after
him St. Cloud), could not be caught, and was saved by some gallant men.
He, disdaining a terrestrial kingdom, dedicated himself to the Lord, was
shorn by his own hand, and became a church-man: he devoted himself wholly
to good works, and died a priest. And the two kings divided equally
between them the kingdom of Clodomir.” (Gregory of Tours, Histoire des
Francs, III. xviii.)
The history of the most barbarous peoples and times assuredly offers no
example, in one and the same family, of an usurpation more perfidiously
and atrociously consummated. King Clodomir, the father of the two young
princes thus dethroned and murdered by their uncles, had, during his
reign, shown almost equal indifference and cruelty. In 523, during a war
which, in concert with his brothers Childebert and Clotaire, he had waged
against Sigismund, king of Burgundy, he had made prisoners of that king,
his wife, and their sons, and kept them shut up at Orleans. The year
after, the war was renewed with the Burgundians. “Clodomir resolved,” says
Gregory of Tours, “to put Sigismund to death. The blessed Avitus, abbot of
St. Mesrnin de Micy (an abbey about two leagues from Orleans), a famous
priest in those days, said to him on this occasion, ‘If, turning thy
thoughts towards God, thou change thy plan, and suffer not these folk to
be slain, God will be with thee, and thou wilt gain the victory; but if
thou slay them, thou thyself wilt be delivered into the hands of thine
enemies, and thou wilt undergo their fate; to thee and thy wife and thy
sons will happen that which thou wilt have done to Sigismund and his wife
and his sons.’ But Clodomir, taking no heed of this counsel, said, ‘It
were great folly to leave one enemy at home when I march out against
another; one attacking me behind and another in front, I should find
myself between two armies: victory will be surer and easier if I separate
one from the other; when the first is once dead, it will be less difficult
to get rid of the other also.’ Accordingly he put Sigismund to death,
together with his wife and his sons, ordered them to be thrown into a well
in the village of Coulmier, belonging to the territory of Orleans, and set
out for Burgundy. After his first success Clodomir fell into an ambush and
into the hands of his enemies, who cut off his head, stuck it on the end
of a pike and held it up aloft. Victory, nevertheless, remained with the
Franks; but scarcely had a year elapsed when Queen Guntheuque, Clodomir’s
widow, became the wife of his brother Clotaire, and his two elder sons,
Theobald and Gonthaire, fell beneath their uncle’s hunting-knife.”
Even in the coarsest and harshest ages the soul of man does not completely
lose its instincts of justice and humanity. The bishops and priests were
not alone in crying out against such atrocities; the barbarians themselves
did not always remain indifferent spectators of them, but sometimes took
advantage of them to rouse the wrath and warlike ardor of their comrades.
“About the year 528, Theodoric, king of Metz, the eldest son of Clovis,
purposed to undertake a grand campaign on the right bank of the Rhine
against his neighbors the Thuringians, and summoned the Franks to a
meeting. ‘Bethink you,’ said he, that of old time the Thuringians fell
violently upon our ancestors, and did them much harm. Our fathers, ye
know, gave them hostages to obtain peace; but the Thuringians put to death
those hostages in divers ways, and once more falling upon our relatives,
took from them all they possessed. After having hung children up, by the
sinews of their thighs, on the branches of trees, they put to a most cruel
death more than two hundred young girls, tying them by the legs to the
necks of horses, which, driven by pointed goads in different directions,
tore the poor souls in pieces; they laid others along the ruts of the
roads, fixed them in the earth with stakes, drove over them laden cars,
and so left them, with their bones all broken, as a meal for the birds and
dogs. To this very day doth Hermannfroi fail in his promise, and
absolutely refuse to fulfil his engagements: right is on our side; march
we against them with the help of God.’ Then the Franks, indignant at such
atrocities, demanded with one voice to be led into Thuringia. . . .
Victory made them masters of it, and they reduced the country under their
dominion. . . . Whilst the Frankish kings were still there, Theodoric
would have slain his brother Clotaire. Having put armed men in waiting, he
had him fetched to treat secretly of a certain matter. Then, having
arranged, in a portion of his house, a curtain from wall to wall, he
posted his armed men behind it; but, as the curtain was too short, it left
their feet exposed. Clotaire, having been warned of the snare, entered the
house armed and with a goodly company. Theodoric then perceived that he
was discovered, invented some story, and talked of this, that, and the
other. At last, not knowing how to get his treachery forgotten, he made
Clotaire a present of a large silvern dish. Clotaire wished him good by,
thanked him, and returned home. But Theodoric immediately complained to
his own folks that he had sacrificed his silvern dish to no purpose, and
said to his son Theodebert, ‘Go, find thy uncle, and pray him to give thee
the present I made him.’ Theodebert went, and got what he asked. In such
tricks did Theodoric excel.” (Gregory of Tours, III. vii.)
These Merovingian kings were as greedy and licentious as they were cruel.
Not only was pillage, in their estimation, the end and object of war, but
they pillaged even in the midst of peace and in their own dominions;
sometimes, after the Roman practice, by aggravation of taxes and fiscal
manoeuvres, at others after the barbaric fashion, by sudden attacks on
places and persons they knew to be rich. It often happened that they
pillaged a church, of which the bishop had vexed them by his protests,
either to swell their own personal treasury, or to make, soon afterwards,
offerings to another church of which they sought the favor. When some
great family event was at hand, they delighted in a coarse magnificence,
for which they provided at the expense of the populations of their
domains, or of the great officers of their courts, who did not fail to
indemnify themselves, thanks to public disorder, for the sacrifices
imposed upon them. At the end of the sixth century, Chilperic, king of
Neustria, had promised his daughter Rigonthe in marriage to Prince
Recared, son of Leuvigild, king of the Visigoths of Spain. “A grand
deputation of Goths came to Paris to fetch the Frankish princess. King
Chilperic ordered several families in the fiscal domains to be seized and
placed in cars. As a great number of them wept and were not willing to go,
he had them kept in prison that he might more easily force them to go away
with his daughter. It is said that several, in their despair, hung
themselves, fearing to be taken from their parents. Sons were separated
from fathers, daughters from mothers, and all departed with deep groans
and maledictions, and in Paris there reigned a desolation like that of
Egypt. Not a few, of superior birth, being forced to go away, even made
wills whereby they left their possessions to the churches, and demanded
that, so soon as the young girl should have entered Spain, their wills
should be opened just as if they were already in their graves. . . . When
King Chilperic gave up his daughter to the ambassadors of the Goths, he
presented them with vast treasures. Her mother (Queen Fredegonde) added
thereto so great a quantity of gold and silver and valuable vestments,
that, at the sight thereof, the king thought he must have nought
remaining. The queen, perceiving his emotion, turned to the Franks, and
said to them, ‘Think not, warriors, that there is here aught of the
treasures of former kings. All that ye see is taken from mine own
possessions, for my most glorious king hath made me many gifts. Thereto
have I added of the fruits of mine own toil, and a great part proceedeth
from the revenues I have drawn, either in kind or in money, from the
houses that have been ceded unto me. Ye yourselves have given me riches,
and ye see here a portion thereof; but there is here nought of the public
treasure.’ And the king was deceived into believing her words. Such was
the multitude of golden and silvern articles and other precious things
that it took fifty wagons to hold them. The Franks, on their part, made
many offerings; some gave gold, others silver, sundry gave horses, but
most of them vestments. At last the young girl, with many tears and
kisses, said farewell. As she was passing through the gate an axle of her
carriage broke, and all cried out alacic! which was interpreted by some as
a presage. She departed from Paris, and at eight miles’ distance front the
city she had her tents pitched. During the night fifty men arose, and,
having taken a hundred of the best horses and as many golden bits and
bridles, and two large silvern dishes, fled away, and took refuge with
king Childebert. During the whole journey whoever could escape fled away
with all that he could lay hands on. It was required also of all the towns
that were traversed on the way, that they should make great preparations
to defray expenses, for the king forbade any contribution from the
treasury: all the charges were met by extraordinary taxes levied on the
poor.” (Gregory of Tours, VI. xlv.)
“Close upon this tyrannical magnificence came unexpected sorrows, and
close upon these outrages remorse. The youngest son of King Chilperic,
Dagobert by name, fell ill. He was a little better, when his elder brother
Chlodebert was attacked with the same symptoms. His mother Fredegonde,
seeing him in danger of death, and touched by tardy repentance, said to
the king, ‘Long hath divine mercy borne with our misdeeds; it hath warned
us by fever, and other maladies, and we have not mended our ways, and now
we are losing our sons; now the tears of the poor, the lamentations of
widows, and the sighs of orphans are causing them to perish, and leaving
us no hope of laying by for any one. We heap up riches and know not for
whom. Our treasures, all laden with plunder and curses, are like to remain
without possessors. Our cellars are they not bursting with wine, and our
granaries with corn? Our coffers were they not full to the brim with gold
and silver and precious stones and necklaces and other imperial ornaments?
And yet that which was our most beautiful possession we are losing! Come
then, if thou wilt, and let us burn all these wicked lists; let our
treasury be content with what was sufficient for thy father Clotaire.’
Having thus spoken, and beating her breast, the queen had brought to her
the rolls, which Mark had consigned to her of each of the cities that
belonged to her, and cast them into the fire. Then, turning again to the
king, ‘What!’ she cried, ‘dost thou hesitate? Do thou even as I; if we
lose our dear children, at least escape we everlasting punishment.’ Then
the king, moved with compunction, threw into the fire all the lists, and,
when they were burned, sent people to stay the levy of those imposts. And
afterwards their youngest child died, worn out with lingering illness.
Overwhelmed with grief, they bare him from their house at Braine to Paris,
and had him buried in the basilica of St. Denis. As for Chlodebert, they
placed him on a litter, carried him to the basilica of St. Medard at
Soissons, and, laying him before the tomb of the saint, offered vows for
his recovery; but in the middle of the night, enfeebled and exhausted, he
gave up the ghost. They buried him in the basilica of the holy martyrs
Crispin and Crispinian. Then King Chilperic showed great largess to the
churches and the monasteries and the poor.” (Gregory of Tours, V. xxxv.)
It is doubtful whether the maternal grief of Fredegonde were quite so
pious and so strictly in accordance with morality as it has been
represented by Gregory of Tours; but she was, without doubt, passionately
sincere. Rash actions and violent passions are the characteristics of
barbaric natures; the interest or impression of the moment holds sway over
them, and causes forgetfulness of every moral law as well as of every wise
calculation. These two characteristics show themselves in the extreme
license displayed in the private life of the Merovingian kings: on
becoming Christians, not only did they not impose upon themselves any of
the Christian rules in respect of conjugal relations, but the greater
number of them did not renounce polygamy, and more than one holy bishop,
at the very time that he reprobated it, was obliged to tolerate it. “King
Clotaire I. had to wife Ingonde, and her only did he love, when she made
to him the following request: ‘My lord,’ said she, ‘hath made of his
handmaid what seemed to him good; and now, to crown his favors, let my
lord deign to hear what his handmaid demandeth. I pray you be graciously
pleased to find for my sister Aregonde, your slave, a man both capable and
rich, so that I be rather exalted than abased thereby, and be enabled to
serve you still more faithfully.’ At these words Clotaire, who was but too
voluptuously disposed by nature, conceived a fancy for Aregonde, betook
himself to the country-house where she dwelt, and united her to him in
marriage. When the union had taken place he returned to Ingonde, and said
to her, ‘I have labored to procure for thee the favor thou didst so
sweetly demand, and, on looking for a man of wealth and capability worthy
to be united to thy sister, I could find no better than myself; know,
therefore, that I have taken her to wife, and I trow that it will not
displease thee.’ What seemeth good in my master’s eyes, that let him do,’
replied Ingonde: ‘only let thy servant abide still in the king’s grace.’”
Clotaire I. had, as has been already remarked, four sons: the eldest,
Charibert, king of Paris, had to wife Ingoberge, “who had in her service
two young persons, daughters of a poor work-man; one of them, named
Marcovieve, had donned the religious dress, the other was called
Meroflede, and the king loved both of them exceedingly. They were
daughters, as has been said, of a worker in wool. Ingoberge, jealous of
the affection borne to them by the king, had their father put to work
inside the palace, hoping that the king, on seeing him in such condition,
would conceive a distaste for his daughters; and, whilst the man was at
his work, she sent for the king.
“Charibert, thinking he was going to see some novelty, saw only the
workman afar off at work on his wool. He forsook Ingoberge, and took to
wife Meroflede. He had also (to wife) another young girl named
Theudoehilde, whose father was a shepherd, a mere tender of sheep, and had
by her, it is said, a son who, on issuing from his mother’s womb, was
carried straight-way to the grave.” Charibert afterwards espoused
Marcovive, sister of Meroflede; and for that cause both were
excommunicated by St. Germain, bishop of Paris.
Chilperic, fourth son of Clotaire I. and king of Soissons, “though he had
already several wives, asked the hand of Galsuinthe, eldest daughter of
Athanagild, king of Spain. She arrived at Soissons and was united to him
in marriage; and she received strong evidences of love, for she had
brought with her vast treasures. But his love for Fredegonde, one of the
principal women about Chilperic, occasioned fierce disputes between them.
As Galsuinthe had to complain to the king of continual insult and of not
sharing with him the dignity of his rank, she asked him in return for the
treasures which she had brought, and which she was ready to give up to
him, to send her back free to her own country. Chilperic, artfully
dissimulating, appeased her with soothing words; and then had her
strangled by a slave, and she was found dead in her bed. When he had
mourned for her death, he espoused Fredegonde after an interval of a few
days.” (Gregory of Tours, IV. xxvi., xxviii.)
Amidst such passions and such morals, treason, murder and poisoning were
the familiar processes of ambition, covetousness, hatred, vengeance, and
fear. Eight kings or royal heirs of the Merovingian line died of brutal
murder or secret assassination, to say nothing of innumerable crimes of
the same kind committed in their circle, and left unpunished, save by
similar crimes. Nevertheless, justice is due to the very worst times and
the very worst governments; and it must be recorded that, whilst sharing
in many of the vices of their age and race, especially their extreme
license of morals, three of Clovis’s successors, Theodebert, king of
Austrasia (from 534 to 548), Gontran, king of Burgundy (from 561 to 598),
and Dogobert I., who united under his own sway the whole Frankish monarchy
(from 622 to 688), were less violent, less cruel, less iniquitous, and
less grossly ignorant or blind than the majority of the Merovingians.
“Theodebert,” says Gregory of Tours, “when confirmed in his kingdom,
showed himself full of greatness and goodness; he ruled with justice,
honoring the bishops, doing good to the churches, helping the poor, and
distributing in many directions numerous benefits with a very charitable
and very liberal hand. He generously remitted to the churches of Auvergne
all the tribute they were wont to pay into his treasury.” (III. xxv.)
Gontran, king of Burgundy, in spite of many shocking and unprincipled
deeds, at one time of violence, at another of weakness, displayed, during
his reign of thirty-three years, an inclination towards moderation and
peace, in striking contrast with the measureless pretensions and
outrageous conduct of the other Frankish kings his contemporaries,
especially King Chilperic his brother. The treaty concluded by Gontran, on
the 38th of November, 587, at Andelot, near Langres, with his young nephew
Childebert, king of Metz, and Queen Brunehant, his mother, contains
dispositions, or, more correctly speaking, words, which breathe a sincere
but timid desire to render justice to all, to put an end to the vindictive
or retrospective quarrels and spoliations which were incessantly harassing
the Gallo-Frankish community, and to build up peace between the two kings
on the foundation of mutual respect for the rights of their lieges. “It is
established,” says this treaty, “that whatsoever the kings have given to
the churches or to their lieges, or with God’s help shall hereafter will
to give to them lawfully, shall be irrevocable acquired; as also that none
of the lieges, in one kingdom or the other, shall have to suffer damage in
respect of whatsoever belongeth to him, either by law or by virtue of a
decree, but shall be permitted to recover and possess things due to him. .
. . And as the aforesaid kings have allied themselves, in the name of God,
by a pure and sincere affection, it hath been agreed that at no time shall
passage through one kingdom be refused to the Leudes (lieges—great
vassals) of the other kingdom who shall desire to traverse them on public
or private affairs. It is likewise agreed that neither of the two kings
shall solicit the Leudes of the other or receive them if they offer
themselves; and if, peradventure, any of these Leudes shall think it
necessary, in consequence of some fault, to take refuge with the other
king, he shall be absolved according to the nature of his fault and given
back. It hath seemed good also to add to the present treaty that
whichever, if either, of the parties happen to violate it, under any
pretext and at any time whatsoever, it shall lose all advantages, present
or prospective, therefrom; and they shall be for the profit of that party
which shall have faithfully observed the aforesaid conventions, and which
shall be relieved in all points from the obligations of its oath.”
(Gregory of Tours, IX. xx.)
It may be doubted whether between Gontran and Childebert the promises in
the treaty were always scrupulously fulfilled; but they have a stamp of
serious and sincere intention foreign to the habitual relations between
the other Merovingian kings.
Mention was but just now made of two women—two queens—Fredegonde
and Brunehaut, who, at the Merovingian epoch, played important parts in
the history of the country. They were of very different origin and
condition; and, after fortunes which were for a long while analogous, they
ended very differently. Fredegonde was the daughter of poor peasants in
the neighborhood of Montdidier in Picardy, and at an early age joined the
train of Queen Audovere, the first wife of King Chilperic. She was
beautiful, dexterous, ambitious, and bold; and she attracted the
attention, and before long awakened the passion of the king. She pursued
with ardor and without scruple her unexpected fortune. Queen Audovere was
her first obstacle and her first victim; and on the pretext of a spiritual
relationship which rendered her marriage with Chilperic illegal, was
repudiated and banished to a convent. But Fredegonde’s hour had not yet
come; for Chilperic espoused Galsuinthe, daughter of the Visigothic king,
Athanagild, whose youngest daughter, Brunehaut, had just married
Chilperic’s brother, Sigebert, king of Austrasia. It has already been said
that before long Galsuinthe was found strangled in her bed, and that
Chilperic espoused Fredegonde. An undying hatred from that time arose
between her and Brunehaut, who had to avenge her sister. A war,
incessantly renewed, between the kings of Austrasia and Neustria followed.
Sigebert succeeded in beating Chilperic, but, in 575, in the midst of his
victory, he was suddenly assassinated in his tent by two emissaries of
Fredegonde. His army disbanded; and his widow, Brunehaut, fell into the
hands of Chilperic. The right of asylum belonging to the cathedral of
Paris saved her life, but she was sent away to Rouen. There, at this very
time, on a mission from his father, happened to be Merovee, son of
Chilperic, and the repudiated Queen Audovere; he saw Brunehaut in her
beauty, her attractiveness and her trouble; he was smitten with her and
married her privately, and Praetextatus, bishop of Rouen, had the
imprudent courage to seal their union. Fredegonde seized with avidity upon
this occasion for persecuting her rival and destroying her step-son, heir
to the throne of Chilperic. The Austrasians, who had preserved the child
Childebert, son of their murdered king, demanded back with threats their
queen Brunehaut. She was surrendered to them; but Fredegonde did not let
go her other prey, Merovice. First imprisoned, then shorn and shut up in a
monastery, afterwards a fugitive and secretly urged on to attempt a rising
against his father, he was so affrightened at his perils, that he got a
faithful servant to strike him dead, that he might not fall into the hands
of his hostile step-mother. Chilperic had remaining another son, Clovis,
issue, as Merovee was, of Queen Audovere. He was accused of having caused
by his sorceries the death of the three children lost about this time by
Fredegonde; and was, in his turn, imprisoned and before long poniarded.
His mother Audovere was strangled in her convent. Fredegonde sought in
these deaths, advantageous for her own children, some sort of horrible
consolation for her sorrows as a mother. But the sum of crimes was not yet
complete. In 584 King Chilperic, on returning from the chase and in the
act of dismounting, was struck two mortal blows by a man who took to rapid
flight, and a cry was raised all around of “Treason! ‘tis the hand of the
Austrasian Childebert against our lord the king!” The care taken to have
the cry raised was proof of its falsity; it was the hand of Fredegonde
herself, anxious lest Chilperic should discover the guilty connection
existing between her and an officer of her household, Landry, who became
subsequently mayor of the palace of Neustria. Chilperic left a son, a few
months old, named. Clotaire, of whom his mother Fredegonde became the
sovereign guardian. She employed, at one time in defending him against his
enemies, at another in endangering him by her plots, her hatreds and her
assaults, the last thirteen years of her life. She was a true type of the
strong-willed, artful, and perverse woman in barbarous times; she started
low down in the scale and rose very high without a corresponding elevation
of soul; she was audacious and perfidious, as perfect in deception as in
effrontery, proceeding to atrocities either from cool calculation or a
spirit of revenge, abandoned to all kinds of passion, and, for
gratification of them, shrinking from no sort of crime. However, she died
quietly at Paris, in 597 or 598, powerful and dreaded, and leaving on the
throne of Neustria her son Clotaire II., who, fifteen years later, was to
become sole king of all the Frankish dominions.
Brunehaut had no occasion for crimes to become a queen, and, in spite of
those she committed, and in spite of her out-bursts and the moral
irregularities of her long life, she bore, amidst her passion and her
power, a stamp of courageous frankness and intellectual greatness which
places her far above the savage who was her rival. Fredegonde was an
upstart, of barbaric race and habits, a stranger to every idea and every
design not connected with her own personal interest and successes; and she
was as brutally selfish in the case of her natural passions as in the
exercise of a power acquired and maintained by a mixture of artifice and
violence. Brunehaut was a princess of that race of Gothic kings who, in
Southern Gaul and in Spain, had understood and admired the Roman
civilization, and had striven to transfer the remains of it to the
newly-formed fabric of their own dominions. She, transplanted to a home
amongst the Franks of Austrasia, the least Roman of all the barbarians,
preserved there the ideas and tastes of the Visigoths of Spain, who had
become almost Gallo-Romans; she clung stoutly to the efficacious exercise
of the royal authority; she took a practical interest in the public works,
highways, bridges, monuments, and the progress of material civilization;
the Roman roads in a short time received and for a long while kept in
Anstrasia the name of Brunehaut’s causeways; there used to he shown, in a
forest near Bourges, Brunehaut’s castle, Brunehaut’s tower at Etampes,
Brunehaut’s stone near Tournay, and Brunehaut’s fort near Cahors. In the
royal domains and wheresoever she went she showed abundant charity to the
poor, and many ages after her death the people of those districts still
spoke of Brunehaut’s alms. She liked and protected men of letters, rare
and mediocre indeed at that time, but the only beings, such as they were,
with a notion of seeking and giving any kind of intellectual enjoyment;
and they in turn took pleasure in celebrating her name and her deserts.
The most renowned of all during that age, Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers,
dedicated nearly all his little poems to two queens; one, Brunehaut,
plunging amidst all the struggles and pleasures of the world, the other
St. Radegonde, sometime wife of Clotaire I., who had fled in all haste
from a throne, to bury herself at Poitiers, in the convent she had founded
there. To compensate, Brunehaut was detested by the majority of the
Austrasian chiefs, those Leudes, landowners and warriors, whose sturdy and
turbulent independence she was continually fighting against. She supported
against them, with indomitable courage, the royal officers, the servants
of the palace, her agents, and frequently her favorites. One of these,
Lupus, a Roman by origin, and Duke of Champagne, “was being constantly
insulted and plundered by his enemies, especially by Ursion Bertfried. At
last, they, having agreed to slay him, marched against him with an army.
At the sight, Brunehaut, compassionating the evil case of one of her
lieges unjustly persecuted, assumed quite a manly courage, and threw
herself amongst the hostile battalions, crying, “‘Stay, warriors; refrain
from this wicked deed; persecute not the innocent; engage not, for a
single man’s sake, in a battle which will desolate the country!’ ‘Back,
woman,’ said Ursion to her; ‘let it suffice thee to have ruled under thy
husband’s sway; now ‘tis thy son who reigns, and his kingdom is under our
protection, not thine. Back! if thou wouldest not that the hoofs of our
horses trample thee under as the dust of the ground!’ After the dispute
had lasted some time in this strain, the queen, by her address, at last
prevented the battle from taking place.” (Gregory of Tours, VI. iv.) It
was but a momentary success for Brunehaut; and the last words of Ursion
contained a sad presage of the death awaiting her. Intoxicated with power,
pride, hate, and revenge, she entered more violently every day into strife
not only with the Austrasian laic chieftains, but with some of the
principal bishops of Austrasia and Burgundy, among the rest with St.
Didier, bishop of Vienne, who, at her instigation, was brutally murdered,
and with the great Irish missionary St. Columba, who would not sanction by
his blessing the fruits of the royal irregularities. In 614, after
thirty-nine years of wars, plots, murders, and political and personal
vicissitudes, from the death of her husband Sigebert I., and under the
reigns of her son Theodebert, and her grandsons Theodebert II. and Thierry
II., Queen Brunehaut, at the age of eighty years, fell into the hands of
her mortal enemy, Clotaire II., son of Fredegonde, now sole king of the
Franks. After having grossly insulted her, he had her paraded, seated on a
camel, in front of his whole army, and then ordered her to be tied by the
hair, one foot, and one arm to the tail of an unbroken horse, that carried
her away, and dashed her in pieces as he galloped and kicked, beneath the
eyes of the ferocious spectators.
After the execution of Brunehaut and the death of Clotaire II., the
history of the Franks becomes a little less dark and less bloody. Not that
murders and great irregularities, in the court and amongst the people,
disappear altogether. Dagobert I., for instance, the successor of Clotaire
II., and grandson of Chilperic and Fredegonde, had no scruple, under the
pressure of self-interest, in committing an iniquitous and barbarous act.
After having consented to leave to his younger brother Charibert the
kingdom of Aquitania, he retook it by force in 631, at the death of
Charibert, seizing at the same time his treasures, and causing or
permitting to be murdered his young nephew Chilperic, rightful heir of his
father. About the same time Dagobert had assigned amongst the Bavarians,
subjects of his beyond the Rhine, an asylum to nine thousand Bulgarians,
who had been driven with their wives and children from Pannonia. Not
knowing, afterwards, where to put or how to feed these refugees, he
ordered them all to be massacred in one night; and scarcely seven hundred
of them succeeded in escaping by flight. The private morals of Dagobert
were not more scrupulous than his public acts. “A slave to incontinence as
King Solomon was,” says his biographer Fredegaire, “he had three queens
and a host of concubines.” Given up to extravagance and pomp, it pleased
him to imitate the magnificence of the imperial court at Constantinople,
and at one time he laid hands for that purpose, upon the possessions of
certain of his “leudes” or of certain churches; at another he gave to his
favorite church, the Abbey of St. Denis, “so many precious stones,
articles of value, and domains in various places, that all the world,”
says Fredegaire, “was stricken with admiration.” But, despite of these
excesses and scandals, Dagobert was the most wisely energetic, the least
cruel in feeling, the most prudent in enterprise, and the most capable of
governing with some little regularity and effectiveness, of all the kings
furnished, since Clovis, by the Merovingian race. He had, on ascending the
throne, this immense advantage, that the three Frankish dominions,
Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy were re-united under his sway; and at
the death of his brother Charibert, he added thereto Aquitania. The unity
of the vast Frankish monarchy was thus re-established, and Dagobert
retained it by his moderation at home and abroad. He was brave, and he
made war on occasion; but, he did not permit himself to be dragged into it
either by his own passions or by the unlimited taste of his lieges for
adventure and plunder. He found, on this point, salutary warnings in the
history of his predecessors. It was very often the Franks themselves, the
royal “leudes,” who plunged their kings into civil or foreign wars. In
530, two sons of Clovis, Childebert and Clotaire, arranged to attack
Burgundy and its king Godomar. They asked aid of their brother Theodoric,
who refused to join them. However, the Franks who formed his party said,
“If thou refuse to march into Burgundy with thy brethren, we give thee up,
and prefer to follow them.” But Theodoric, considering that the Arvernians
had been faithless to him, said to the Franks, “Follow me, and I will lead
you into a country where ye shall seize of gold and silver as much as ye
can desire, and whence ye shall take away flocks and slaves and vestments
in abundance!” The Franks, overcome by these words, promised to do
whatsoever he should desire. So Theodoric entered Auvergne with his army,
and wrought devastation and ruin in the province.
“In 555, Clotaire I. had made an expedition against the Saxons, who
demanded peace; but the Frankish warriors would not hear of it. ‘Cease, I
pray you,’ said Clotaire to them, ‘to be evil-minded against these men;
they speak us fair; let us not go and attack them, for fear we bring down
upon us the anger of God.’ But the Franks would not listen to him. The
Saxons again came with offerings of vestments, flocks, even all their
possessions, saying, ‘Take all this, together with half our country; leave
us but our wives and little children; only let there be no war between
us.’ But the Franks again refused all terms. ‘Hold, I adjure you,’ said
Clotaire again to them; ‘we have not right on our side; if ye be
thoroughly minded to enter upon a war in which ye may find your loss, as
for me, I will not follow ye.’ Then the Franks, enraged against Clotaire,
threw themselves upon him, tore his tent to pieces as they heaped
reproaches upon him, and bore him away by force, determined to kill him if
he hesitated to march with them. So Clotaire, in spite of himself,
departed with them. But when they joined battle they were cut to pieces by
their adversaries, and on both sides so many fell that it was impossible
to estimate or count the number of the dead. Then Clotaire with shame
demanded peace of the Saxons, saying that it was not of his own will that
he had attacked them; and, having obtained it, returned to his own
dominions.” (Gregory of Tours, III. xi., xii.; IV. xiv.)
King Dagobert was not thus under the yoke of his “leudes.” Either by his
own energy, or by surrounding himself with wise and influential
counsellors, such as Pepin of Landen, mayor of the palace of Austrasia,
St. Arnoul, bishop of Metz, St. Eligius, bishop of Noyon, and St.
Andoenus, bishop of Rouen, he applied himself to and succeeded in assuring
to himself, in the exercise of his power, a pretty large measure of
independence and popularity. At the beginning of his reign he held, in
Austrasia and Burgundy, a sort of administrative and judicial inspection,
halting at the principal towns, listening to complaints, and checking,
sometimes with a rigor arbitrary indeed, but approved of by the people,
the violence and irregularities of the grandees. At Langres, Dijon, St.
Jean-de, Losne, Chalons-sur-Saline, Auxerre, Autun, and Sens, “he rendered
justice,” says Fredegaire, “to rich and poor alike, without any charges,
and without any respect of persons, taking little sleep and little food,
caring only so to act that all should withdraw from his presence full of
joy and admiration.” Nor did he confine himself to this unceremonious
exercise of the royal authority. Some of his predecessors, and amongst
them Childebert I., Clotaire I., and Clotaire II., had caused to be drawn
up, in Latin and by scholars, digests more or less complete of the laws
and customs handed down by tradition, amongst certain of the Germanic
peoples established on Roman soil, notably the laws of the Salian Franks
and Ripuarian Franks; and Dagobert ordered a continuation of these first
legislative labors amongst the newborn nations. It was, apparently, in his
reign that a digest was made of the laws of the Allemannians and
Bavarians. He had also some taste for the arts, and the pious talents
displayed by Saints Eloi and Ouen in goldsmith’s-work and sculpture,
applied to the service of religion or the decoration of churches, received
from him the support of the royal favor and munificence. Dagobert was
neither a great warrior nor a great legislator, and there is nothing to
make him recognized as a great mind or a great character. His private
life, too, was scandalous; and extortions were a sad feature of its close.
Nevertheless his authority was maintained in his dominions, his reputation
spread far and wide, and the name of great King Dagobert was his abiding
title in the memory of the people. Taken all in all, he was, next to
Clovis, the most distinguished of Frankish kings, and the last really king
in the line of the Merovingians. After him, from 638 to 732, twelve
princes of this line, one named Sigebert, two Clovis, two Childeric, one
Clotaire, two Dagobert, one Childebert, one Chilperic, and two Throdoric
or Thierry, bore, in Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy, or in the three
kingdoms united, the title of king, without deserving in history more than
room for their names. There was already heard the rumbling of great events
to come around the Frankish dominion; and in the very womb of this
dominion was being formed a new race of kings more able to bear, in
accordance with the spirit and wants of their times, the burden of power.
CHAPTER IX.
THE MAYORS OF THE PALACE.
THE PEPINS AND THE
CHANGE OF DYNASTY.
There is a certain amount of sound sense, of intelligent activity and
practical efficiency, which even the least civilized and least exacting
communities absolutely must look for in their governing body. When this
necessary share of ability and influence of a political kind are decidedly
wanting in the men who have the titles and the official posts of power,
communities seek elsewhere the qualities (and their consequences) which
they cannot do without. The sluggard Merovingians drove the Franks,
Neustrians, and Austrasians to this imperative necessity. The last of the
kings sprung from Clovis acquitted themselves too ill or not at all of
their task; and the mayors of the palace were naturally summoned to supply
their deficiencies, and to give the populations assurance of more
intelligence and energy in the exercise of power. The origin and primitive
character of these supplements of royalty were different according to
circumstances; at one time, conformably with their title, the mayors of
the palace really came into existence in the palace of the Frankish kings,
amongst the “leudes,” charged, under the style of antrustions (lieges in
the confidence of the king: in truste regia), with the internal management
of the royal affairs and household, or amongst the superior chiefs of the
army; at another, on the contrary, it was to resist the violence and
usurpation of the kings that the “leudes,” landholders or warriors,
themselves chose a chief able to defend their interests and their rights
against the royal tyranny or incapacity. Thus we meet, at this time, with
mayors of the palace of very different political origin and intention,
some appointed by the kings to support royalty against the “leudes,”
others chosen by the “leudes” against the kings. It was especially between
the Neustrian and Austrasian mayors of the palace that this difference
became striking. Gallo-Roman feeling was more prevalent in Neustria,
Germanic in Austrasia. The majority of the Neustrian mayors supported the
interests of royalty, the Austrasian those of the aristocracy of
landholders and warriors. The last years of the Merovingian line were full
of their struggles; but a cause far more general and more powerful than
these differences and conflicts in the very heart of the Frankish
dominions determined the definitive fall of that line and the accession of
another dynasty. When in 687 the battle fought at Testry, on the banks of
the Somme, left Pepin of Heristal, duke and mayor of the palace of
Austrasia, victorious over Bertaire, mayor of the palace of Neustria, it
was a question of something very different from mere rivalry between the
two Frankish dominions and their chiefs.
At their entrance and settlement upon the left bank of the Rhine and in
Gaul, the Franks had not abandoned the right bank and Germany; there also
they remained settled and incessantly at strife with their neighbors of
Germanic race, Thuringians, Bavarians, the confederation of Allemannians,
Frisons, and Saxons, people frequently vanquished and subdued to all
appearance, but always ready to rise either for the recovery of their
independence, or, again, under the pressure of that grand movement which,
in the third century, had determined the general invasion by the
barbarians of the Roman empire. After the defeat of the Huns at Chalons,
and the founding of the Visigothic, Burgundian, and Frankish kingdoms in
Gaul, that movement had been, if not arrested, at any rate modified, and
for the moment suspended. In the sixth century it received a fresh
impulse; new nations, Avars, Tartars, Bulgarians, Slavons, and Lombards
thrust one another with mutual pressure from Asia into Europe, from
Eastern Europe into Western; from the North to the South, into Italy and
into Gaul. Driven by the Ouigour Tartars from Pannonia and Noricum
(nowadays Austria), the Lombards threw themselves first upon Italy,
crossed before long the Alps, and penetrated into Burgundy and Provence,
to the very gates of Avignon. On the Rhine and along the Jura the Franks
had to struggle on their own account against the new comers; and they
were, further, summoned into Italy by the Emperors of the East, who wanted
their aid against the Lombards. Everywhere resistance to the invasion of
barbarians became the national attitude of the Franks, and they proudly
proclaimed themselves the defenders of that West of which they had but
lately been the conquerors.
When the Merovingians were indisputably nothing but sluggard kings, and
when Ebroin, the last great mayor of the palace of Neustria, had been
assassinated (in 681), and the army of the Neustrians destroyed at the
battle of Testry (in 687), the ascendency in the heart of the whole of
Frankish Gaul passed to the Franks of Austrasia, already bound by their
geographical position to the defence of their nation in its new
settlement. There had risen up among them a family, powerful from its vast
domains, from its military and political services, and already also from
the prestige belonging to the hereditary transmission of name and power.
Its first chief known in history had been Pepin of Landen, called The
Ancient, one of the foes of Queen Brunehaut, who was so hateful to the
Austrasians, and afterwards one of the privy councillors and mayor of the
palace of Austrasia, under Dagobert I. and his son Sigebert II. He died in
639, leaving to his family an influence already extensive. His son
Grimoald succeeded him as mayor of the palace, ingloriously; but his
grandson, by his daughter Bega, Pepin of Heristal, was for twenty-seven
years not only virtually, as mayor of the palace, but ostensibly and with
the title of duke, the real sovereign of Austrasia and all the Frankish
dominion. He did not, however, take the name of king; and four descendants
of Clovis, Thierry III., Clovis III., Childebert III., and Dagobert III.
continued to bear that title in Neustria and Burgundy, under the
preponderating influence of Pepin of Heristal. He did, during his long
sway, three things of importance. He struggled without cessation to keep
or bring back under the rule of the Franks the Germanic nations on the
right bank of the Rhine,—Frisons, Saxons, Thuringians, Bavarians,
and Allemannians; and thus to make the Frankish dominion a bulwark against
the new flood of barbarians who were pressing one another westwards.
He rekindled in Austrasia the national spirit and some political life by
beginning again the old March parades of the Franks, which had fallen into
desuetude under the last Merovingians. Lastly, and this was, perhaps, his
most original merit, he understood of what importance, for the Frankish
kingdom, was the conversion to Christianity of the Germanic peoples over
the Rhine, and he abetted with all his might the zeal of the popes and
missionaries, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and Gallo-Roman, devoted to this great
work. The two apostles of Friesland, St. Willfried and St. Willibrod,
especially the latter, had intimate relations with Pepin of Heristal, and
received from him effectual support. More than twenty bishoprics, amongst
others those of Utrecht, Mayence, Ratisbonne, Worms, and Spire, were
founded at this epoch; and one of those ardent pioneers of Christian
civilization, the Irish bishop, St. Lievin, martyred in 656 near Ghent, of
which he has remained the patron saint, wrote in verse to his friend
Herbert, a little before his martyrdom, “I have seen a sun without rays,
days without light, and nights without repose. Around me rageth a people
impious and clamorous for my blood. O people, what harm have I done thee?
‘Tis peace that I bring thee; wherefore declare war against me? But thy
barbarism will bring my triumph and give me the palm of martyrdom. I know
in whom I trust, and my hope shall not be confounded. Whilst I am pouring
forth these verses, there cometh unto me the tired driver of the ass that
beareth me the usual provisions: he bringeth that which maketh the
delights of the country, even milk and butter and eggs; the cheeses
stretch the wicker-work of the far too narrow panniers. Why tarriest thou,
good carrier? Quicken thy step; collect thy riches, thou that this morning
art so poor. As for me I am no longer what I was, and have lost the gift
of joyous verse. How could it be other-wise when I am witness of such
cruelties?”
It were difficult to describe with more pious, graceful, and melancholy
feeling a holier and a simpler life.
After so many firm and glorious acts of authority abroad, Pepin of
Heristal at his death, December 16, 714, did a deed of weakness at home.
He had two wives, Plectrude and Alpaide; he had repudiated the former to
espouse the latter, and the church, considering the second marriage
unlawful, had constantly urged him to take back Plectrude. He had by her a
son, Grimoald, who was assassinated on his way to join his father lying
ill near Liege. This son left a child, Theodoald, only six years old. This
child it was whom Pepin, either from a grandfather’s blind fondness, or
through the influence of his wife Plectrude, appointed to succeed him, to
the detriment of his two sons by Alpaide, Charles and Childebrand.
Charles, at that time twenty-five years of age, had already a name for
capacity and valor. On the death of Pepin, his widow Plectrude lost no
time in arresting and imprisoning at Cologne this son of her rival
Alpaide; but, some months afterwards, in 715, the Austrasians, having
risen against Plectrude, took Charles out of prison and set him at their
head, proclaiming him Duke of Austrasia. He was destined to become Charles
Martel.
He first of all took care to extend and secure his own authority over all
the Franks. At the death of Pepin of Heristal, the Neustrians, vexed at
the long domination of the Austrasians, had taken one of themselves,
Ragenfried, as mayor of the palace, and had placed at his side a
Merovingian sluggard king, Chilperic II., whom they had dragged from a
monastery. Charles, at the head of the Austrasians, twice succeeded in
beating, first near Cambrai and then near Soissons, the Neustrian king and
mayor of the palace, pursued them to Paris, returned to Cologne, got
himself accepted by his old enemy Queen Plectrude, and remaining temperate
amidst the triumph of his ambition, he, too, took from amongst the
surviving Merovingians a sluggard king, whom he installed under the name
of Clotaire IV., himself becoming, with the simple title of Duke of
Austrasia, master of the Frankish dominion.
Being in tranquillity on the left bank of the Rhine, Charles directed
towards the right bank—towards the Frisons and the Saxons—his
attention and his efforts. After having experienced, in a first encounter,
a somewhat severe check, he took, from 715 to 718, ample revenge upon
them, repressed their attempts at invasion of Frankish territory, and
pursued them on their own, imposed tribute upon them, and commenced with
vigor, against the Saxons in particular, that struggle, at first defensive
and afterwards aggressive, which was to hold so prominent a place in the
life and glorious but blood-stained annals of his grandson Charlemagne.
In the war against the Neustrians, at the battle of Soissons in 719,
Charles had encountered in their ranks Eudes or Eudon, Duke of Aquitania
and Vasconia, that beautiful portion of Southern Gaul situated between the
Pyrenees, the Ocean, the Garonne, and the Rhone, who had been for a long
time trying to shake off the dominion of the barbarians, Visigoths or
Franks. At the death of Pepin of Heristal, the Neustrians had drawn into
alliance with them, for their war against the Austrasians, this Duke
Elides, to whom they gave, as it appears, the title of king. After their
common defeat at Soissons, the Aquitanian prince withdrew precipitately
into his own country, taking with him the sluggard king of the Neustrians,
Chilperic II. Charles pursued him to the Loire, and sent word to him, a
few months afterwards, that he would enter into friendship with him if he
would deliver up Chilperic and his treasures; otherwise he would invade
and ravage Aquitania. Eudes delivered up Chilperic and his treasures; and
Charles, satisfied with having in his power this Merovingian phantom,
treated him generously, kept up his royal rank, and at his death, which
happened soon afterwards, replaced him by another phantom of the same
line, Theodoric or Thierry IV.; whom he dragged from the abbey of Chelles,
founded by Queen St. Bathilde, wife of Clovis II., and who for seventeen
years bore the title of king, whilst Charles Martel was ruling gloriously,
and was, perhaps, the savior of the Frankish dominions. When he contracted
his alliance with the Duke of Aquitania, Charles Martel did not know
against what enemies and perils he would soon have to struggle.
In the earlier years of the eighth century, less than a hundred years from
the death of Mahomet, the Mussulman Arabs, after having conquered Syria,
Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Northern Africa, had passed into Europe, invaded
Spain, overthrown the kingdom of the Visigoths, driven back the remnants
of the nation and their chief, Pelagius, to the north of the Peninsula,
into the Asturias and Galicia, and pushed even beyond the Pyrenees, into
old Narbonness, then called Septimania, their limitless incursions. These
fiery conquerors did not amount at that time, according to the most
probable estimates, to more than fifty thousand; but they were under the
influence of religious and warlike enthusiasm at one and the same time;
they were fanatics in the cause of Deism and of glory. “The Arab warrior
during campaigns was not excused from any one of the essential duties of
Islamism; he was bound to pray at least once a day, on rising in the
morning, at the blush of dawn. The general of the army was its priest; he
it was who, at the head of the ranks, gave the signal for prayer, uttered
the words, reminded the troops of the precepts of the Koran, and enjoined
upon them forgetfulness of personal quarrels.” One day, on the point of
engaging in a decisive battle, Moussaben- Nossair, first governor of
Mussulman Africa, was praying, according to usage, at the head of the
troops; and he omitted the invocation of the name of the Khalif, a
respectful formality indispensable on the occasion. One of his officers,
persuaded that it was a mere slip on Moussa’s part, made a point of
admonishing him. “Know thou,” said Moussa, “that we are in such a position
and at such an hour that no other name must be invoked save that of the
most high God.” Moussa was, apparently, the first Arab chief to cross the
Pyrenees and march, plundering as he went, into Narbonness. The Arabs had
but very confused ideas of Gaul; they called it Frandjas, and gave
to all its inhabitants, without distinction, the name of Frandj. The
Khalif Abdelmelek, having recalled Moussa, questioned him about the
different peoples with which he had been concerned. “And of these Frandj,”
said he, “what hast thou to tell me?” “They are a people,” answered
Moussa, “very many in number and abundantly provided with everything,
brave and impetuous in attack, but spiritless and timid under reverses.”
“And how went the war betwixt them and thee?” added Abdelmelek: “was it
favorable to thee or the contrary?” “The contrary! Nay, by Allah and the
Prophet; never was my army vanquished; never was a battalion beaten; and
never did the Mussulmans hesitate to follow me when I led them forty
against fourscore.” (Fauriel, Histoire de la Gaule, &c., t.
III., pp. 48, 67.)
In 719, under El-Idaur-ben-Abdel-Rhaman, a valiant and able leader, say
the Arab writers, but greedy, harsh, and cruel, the Arabs pursued their
incursions into Southern Gaul, took Narbonne, dispersed the inhabitants,
spread themselves abroad in search of plunder as far as the borders of the
Garonne, and went and laid siege to Toulouse. Eudes, Duke of Aquitania,
happened to be at Bordeaux, and he hastily summoned all the forces of his
towns and all the populations from the Pyrenees to the Loire, and hurried
to the relief of his capital. The Arabs, commanded by a new chieftain,
El-Samah, more popular amongst them than El-Haur, awaited him beneath the
walls of the city determined to give him battle. “Have ye no fear of this
multitude,” said El-Samah to his warriors; “if God be with us, who shall
be against us? “Elides had taken equally great pains to kindle the pious
courage of the Aquitanians; he spread amongst his troops a rumor that he
had but lately received as a present from Pope Gregory II. three sponges
that had served to wipe down the table at which the sovereign pontiffs
were accustomed to celebrate the communion; he had them cut into little
strips which he had distributed to all those of the combatants who wished
for them, and thereupon gave the sword to sound the charge. The victory of
the Aquitanians was complete; the Arab army was cut in pieces; El-Samah
was slain, and with him, according to the victors’ accounts, full three
hundred and seventy-five thousand of his troops. The most truth-like
testimonies and calculations do not put down at more than from fifty to
seventy thousand men, in fighting trim, the number of Arabs that entered
Spain eight or ten years previously, even with the additions it must have
received by means of the emigrations from Africa; and undoubtedly El-Samah
could not have led into Aquitania more than from forty to forty-five
thousand. However that may be, the defeat of the Arabs before Toulouse was
so serious that, four or five centuries afterwards, Ibn-Hayan, the best of
their historians, still spoke of it as the object of solemn commemoration,
and affirmed that the Arab army had entirely perished there, without the
escape of a single man. The spot in the Roman road, between Carcassonne
and Toulouse, where the battle was fought, was one heap of dead bodies,
and continued to be mentioned in the Arab chronicles under the name of
Martyrs’ Causeway. But the Arabs of Spain were then in that unstable
social condition and in that heyday of impulsive youthfulness as a people,
when men are more apt to be excited and attracted by the prospect of bold
adventures than discouraged by reverses. El-Samah, on crossing the
Pyrenees to go plundering and conquering in the country of the Frandj, had
left as his lieutenant in the Iberian peninsula Anbessa-ben-Sohim, one of
the most able, most pious, most just, and most humane chieftains, say the
Arab chronicles, that Islamism ever produced in Europe. He, being informed
of El-Samah’s death before Toulouse, resolved to resume his enterprise and
avenge his defeat. In 725, he entered Gaul with a strong army; took
Carcassonne; reduced, either by force or by treaty, the principal towns of
Septimania to submission; and even carried the Arab arms, for the first
time, beyond the Rhone into Provence. At the news of this fresh invasion
Duke Eudes hurried from Aquitania, collecting on his march the forces of
the country, and, after having waited some time for a favorable
opportunity, gave the Arabs battle in Provence. It was indecisive at
first, but ultimately won by the Christians without other result than the
retreat of Anbessa, mortally wounded, upon the right bank of the Rhone,
where he died without having been able himself to recross the Pyrenees,
but leaving the Arabs masters of Septimania, where they established
themselves in force, taking Narbonne for capital and a starting-point for
their future enterprises.
The struggle had now begun in earnest, from the Rhone to the Garonne and
the Ocean, between the Christians of Southern Gaul and the Mussulmans of
Spain. Duke Eudes saw with profound anxiety his enemies settled in
Septimania, and ever on the point of invading and devastating Aquitania.
He had been informed that the Khalif Hashem had just appointed to the
governor-generalship of Spain Abdel-Rhaman (the Abderame of the Christian
chronicles), regarded as the most valiant of the Spanish Arabs, and that
this chieftain was making great preparations for resuming their course of
invasion. Another peril at the same time pressed heavily on Duke Eudes:
his northern neighbor, Charles, sovereign duke of the Franks, the
conqueror, beyond the Rhine, of the Frisons and Saxons, was directing
glances full of regret towards those beautiful countries of Southern Gaul,
which in former days Clovis had won from the Visigoths, and which had been
separated, little by little, from the Frankish empire. Either justly or by
way of ruse Charles accused Duke Eudes of not faithfully observing the
treaty of peace they had concluded in 720; and on this pretext he crossed
the Loire, and twice in the same year, 731, carried fear and rapine into
the possession of the Duke of Aquitania on the left bank of that river.
Eudes went, not unsuccessfully, to the rescue of his domains; but he was
soon recalled to the Pyrenees by the news he received of the movements of
Abdel-Rhaman and by the hope he had conceived of finding, in Spain itself
and under the sway of the Arabs, an ally against their invasion of his
dominions. The military command of the Spanish frontier of the Pyrenees
and of the Mussulman forces there encamped had been intrusted to
Othman-ben-Abi-Nessa, a chieftain of renown, but no Arab, either in origin
or at heart, although a Mussulman. He belonged to the race of Berbers,
whom the Romans called Moors, a people of the north-west of Africa,
conquered and subjugated by the Arabs, but impatient under the yoke. The
greater part of Abi- Nessa’s troops were likewise Berbers and devoted to
their chiefs. Abi- Nessa, ambitious and audacious, conceived the project
of seizing the government of the Peninsula, or at the least of making
himself independent master of the districts he governed; and he entered
into negotiations with the Duke of Aquitania to secure his support. In
spite of religious differences their interests were too similar not to
make an understanding easy; and the secret alliance was soon concluded and
confirmed by a precious pledge. Duke Eudes had a daughter of rare beauty,
named Lampagie, and he gave her in marriage to Abi-Nessa, who, say the
chronicles, became desperately enamoured of her.
But whilst Eudes, trusting to this alliance, was putting himself in motion
towards the Loire to protect his possessions against a fresh attack from
the Duke of the Franks, the governor-general of Spain, Abdel- Rhaman,
informed of Abi-Nessa’s plot, was arriving with large forces at the foot
of the Pyrenees, to stamp out the rebellion. Its repression was easy. “At
the approach of Abdel-Rhaman,” say the chroniclers, “Abi-Nessa hastened to
shut himself up in Livia [the ancient capital of Cerdagne, on the ruins of
which Puycerda was built], flattering himself that he could sustain a
siege and there await succor from his father-in-law, Eudes; but the
advance-guard of Abdel-Rhaman followed him so closely and with such ardor
that it left him no leisure to make the least preparation for defence.
Abi-Nessa, had scarcely time to fly from the town and gain the neighboring
mountains with a few servants and his well-beloved Lampagie. Already he
had penetrated into an out-of-the-way and lonely pass, where it seemed to
him he ran no more risk of being discovered. He halted, therefore, to rest
himself and quench the thirst which was tormenting his lovely companion
and himself, beside a waterfall which gushed from a mass of lofty rocks
upon a piece of fresh, green turf. They were surrendering themselves to
the delightful feeling of being saved, when, all at once, they hear a loud
sound of steps and voices; they listen; they glance in the direction of
the sound, and perceive a detachment of armed men, one of those that were
out in search of them. The servants take to flight; but Lampagie, too
weary, cannot follow them, nor can Abi-Nessa abandon Lampagie. In the
twinkling of an eye they are surrounded by foes. The chronicler Isidore of
Bdja says that Abi-Nessa, in order not to fall alive into their hands,
flung himself from top to bottom of the rocks; and an Arab historian
relates that he took sword in hand, and fell pierced with twenty
lance-thrusts whilst fighting in defence of her he loved. They cut off his
head, which was forthwith carried to Abdel- Rhaman, to whom they led away
prisoner the hapless daughter of Eudes. She was so lovely in the eyes of
Abdel-Rhaman, that he thought it his duty to send her to Damascus, to the
commander of the faithful, esteeming no other mortal worthy of her.”
(Fauriel, Historie de la Gaulle, &c., t. III., p. 115.)
Abdel-Rhaman, at ease touching the interior of Spain, reassembled the
forces he had prepared for his expedition, marched towards the Pyrenees by
Pampeluna, crossed the summit become so famous under the name of Port de
Roncevaux, and debouched by a single defile and in a single column, say
the chroniclers, upon Gallic Vasconia, greater in extent than French
Biscay now is. M. Fauriel, after scrupulous examination, according to his
custom, estimates the army of Abdel-Rhaman, whether Mussulman adventurers
flocking from all parts, or Arabs of Spain, at from sixty-five to seventy
thousand fighting men. Duke Eudes made a gallant effort to stop his march
and hurl him back towards the mountains; but exhausted, even by certain
small successes, and always forced to retire, fight after fight, up to the
approaches to Bordeaux, he crossed the Garonne, and halted on the right
bank of the river, to cover the city. Abdel-Rhaman who had followed him
closely, forced the passage of the river, and a battle was fought, in
which the Aquitanians were defeated with immense loss. “God alone,” says
Isidore of Beja, “knows the number of those who fell.” The battle gained,
Abdel-Rhaman took Bordeaux by assault and delivered it over to his army.
The plunder, to believe the historians of the conquerors, surpassed all
that had been preconceived of the wealth of the vanquished: “The most
insignificant soldier,” say they, “had for his share plenty of topazes,
jacinths, and emeralds, to say nothing of gold, a somewhat vulgar article
under the circumstances.” What appears certain is that, at their departure
from Bordeaux, the Arabs were so laden with booty that their march became
less rapid and unimpeded than before.
In the face of this disaster, the Franks and their duke were evidently the
only support to which Eudes could have recourse; and he repaired in all
haste to Charles and invoked his aid against the common enemy, who, after
having crushed the Aquitanians, would soon attack the Franks, and subject
them in turn to ravages and outrages. Charles did not require
solicitation. He took an oath of the Duke of Aquitania to acknowledge his
sovereignty and thenceforth remain faithful to him; and then, summoning
all his warriors, Franks, Burgundians, Gallo-Romans, and Germans from
beyond the Rhine, he set himself in motion towards the Loire. It was time.
The Arabs had spread over the whole country between the Garonne and the
Loire; they had even crossed the latter river and penetrated into Burgundy
as far as Autun and Sens, ravaging the country, the towns, and the
monasteries, and massacring or dispersing the populations. Abdel-Rhaman
had heard tell of the city of Tours and its rich abbey, the treasures
whereof, it was said, surpassed those of any other city and any other
abbey in Gaul. Burning to possess it, he recalled towards this point his
scattered forces. On arriving at Poitiers he found the gates closed and
the inhabitants resolved to defend themselves; and, after a fruitless
attempt at assault, he continued his march towards Tours. He was already
beneath the walls of the place when he learned that the Franks were
rapidly advancing in vast numbers. He fell back towards Poitiers,
collecting the troops that were returning to him from all quarters,
embarrassed with the immense booty they were dragging in their wake. He
had for a moment, say the historians, an idea of ordering his soldiers to
leave or burn their booty, to keep nothing but their arms, and think of
nothing but battle: however, he did nothing of the kind, and, to await the
Franks, he fixed his camp between the Vienne and the Clain, near Poitiers,
not far from the spot where, two hundred and twenty-five years before,
Clovis had beaten the Visigoths; or, according to others, nearer Tours, at
Mire, in a plain still called the Landes de Charlemagne.
The Franks arrived. It was in the month of September or October, 732: and
the two armies passed a week face to face, at one time remaining in their
camps, at another deploying without attacking. It is quite certain that
neither Franks nor Arabs, neither Charles nor Abdel-Rhaman themselves,
took any such account, as we do in our day, of the importance of the
struggle in which they were on the point of engaging; it was a struggle
between East and West, South and North, Asia and Europe, the Gospel and
the Koran; and we now say, on a general consideration of events, peoples,
and ages, that the civilization of the world depended upon it. The
generations that are passing upon earth see not so far, nor from such a
height, the chances and consequences of their acts; the Franks and Arabs,
leaders and followers, did not regard themselves, now nearly twelve
centuries ago, as called upon to decide, near Poitiers, such future
question; but vaguely, instinctively they felt the grandeur of the part
they were playing, and they mutually scanned one another with that grave
curiosity which precedes a formidable encounter between valiant warriors.
At length, at the breaking of the seventh or eighth day, Abdel-Rhaman, at
the head of his cavalry, ordered a general attack; and the Franks received
it with serried ranks, astounding their enemies by their tall stature,
stout armor, and their stern immobility. “They stood there,” says Isidore
of Beja, “like solid walls or icebergs.” During the fight, a body of
Franks penetrated into the enemy’s camp, either for pillage or to take the
Arabs in the rear. The horsemen of Abdel-Rhaman at once left the general
attack, and turned back to defend their camp or the booty deposited there.
Disorder set in amongst them, and, before long, throughout their whole
army; and the battle became a confused melley, wherein the lofty stature
and stout armor of the Franks had the advantage. A great number of Arabs
and Abdel-Rhaman himself were slain. At the approach of night both armies
retired to their camps. The next day, at dawn, the Franks moved out of
theirs, to renew the engagement. In front of them was no stir, no noise,
no Arabs out of their tents and reassembling in their ranks. Some Franks
were sent to reconnoitre, entered the enemy’s camp, and penetrated into
their tents; but they were deserted. “The Arabs had decamped silently in
the night, leaving the bulk of their booty, and by this precipitate
retreat acknowledging a more severe defeat than they had really sustained
in the fight.”
Foreseeing the effect which would be produced by their reverse in the
country they had but lately traversed as conquerors, they halted nowhere,
but hastened to reenter Septimania and their stronghold Narbonne, where
they might await reenforcements from Spain. Duke Eudes, on his side, after
having, as vassal, taken the oath of allegiance to Charles, who will be
henceforth called Charles Martel (Hammer), that glorious name which he won
by the great blow he dealt the Arabs, reentered his dominions of Aquitania
and Vasconia, and applied himself to the reestablishment there of security
and of his own power. As for Charles Martel, indefatigable alike after and
before victory, he did not consider his work in Southern Gaul as
accomplished. He wished to recover and reconstitute in its entirety the
Frankish dominion; and he at once proceeded to reunite to it Provence and
the portions of the old kingdom of Burgundy situated between the Alps and
the Rhone, starting from Lyons. His first campaign with this object, in
733, was successful; he retook Lyons, Vienne, and Valence, without any
stoppage up to the Durance, and charged chosen “leudes” to govern these
provinces with a view especially to the repression of attempts at
independence at home and incursions on the part of the Arabs abroad. And
it was not long before these two perils showed head. The government of
Charles Martel’s “leudes” was hard to bear for populations accustomed for
some time past to have their own way, and for their local chieftains thus
stripped of their influence. Maurontius, patrician of Arles, was the most
powerful and daring of these chieftains; and he had at heart the
independence of his country and his own power far more than Frankish
grandeur. Caring little, no doubt, for the interests of religion, he
entered into negotiations with Youssouf- ben-Abdel-Rhaman, governor of
Narbonne, and summoned the Mussulmans into Provence. Youssouf lost no time
in responding to the summons; and, from 734 to 736, the Arabs conquered
and were in military occupation of the left bank of the Rhone from Arles
to Lyons. But in 737 Charles Martel returned, reentered Lyons and Avignon,
and, crossing the Rhone, marched rapidly on Narbonne, to drive the Arabs
from Septimania. He succeeded in beating them within sight of their
capital; but, after a few attempts at assault, not being able to become
master of it, he returned to Provence, laying waste on his march several
towns of Septimania, Agde, Maguelonne, and Nimes, where he tried, but in
vain, to destroy the famous Roman arenas by fire, as one blows up an
enemy’s fortress. A rising of the Saxons recalled him to Northern Gaul;
and scarcely had he set out from Provence, when national insurrection and
Arab invasion recommenced. Charles Martel waited patiently as long as the
Saxons resisted; but as soon as he was at liberty on their score, in 739,
he collected a strong army, made a third campaign along the Rhone, retook
Avignon, crossed the Durance, pushed on as far as the sea, took
Marseilles, and then Arles, and drove the Arabs definitively from
Provence. Some Mussulman bands attempted to establish themselves about St.
Tropez, on the rugged heights and among the forests of the Alps; but
Charles Martel carried his pursuit even into those wild retreats, and all
Southern Gaul, on the left bank of the Rhone, was incorporated in the
Frankish dominion, which will be henceforth called France.
The ordinary revenues of Charles Martel clearly could not suffice for so
many expeditions and wars. He was obliged to attract or retain by rich
presents, particularly by gifts of lands, the warriors, old and new
“leudes,” who formed his strength. He therefore laid hands on a great
number of the domains of the Church, and gave them, with the title of
benefices, in temporary holding, often converted into proprietorship, and
under the style of precarious tenure, to the chiefs in his service. There
was nothing new in this: the Merovingian kings and the mayors of the
palace had more than once thus made free with ecclesiastical property; but
Charles Martel carried this practice much farther than his predecessors
had. He did more: he sometimes gave his warriors ecclesiastical offices
and dignities. His liege Milo received from him the archbishoprics of
Rheims and Troves; and his nephew Hugh those of Paris, Rouen, and Bayeux,
with the abbeys of Fontenelle and Jumieges. The Church protested with all
her might against such violations of her mission and her interest, her
duties and her rights. She was so specially set against Charles Martel
that, more than a century after his death, in 858, the bishops of France,
addressing themselves to Louis the Germanic on this subject, wrote to him,
“St. Eucherius, bishop of Orleans, who now reposeth in the monastery of
St. Trudon, being at prayer, was transported into the realms of eternity;
and there, amongst other things which the Lord did show unto him, he saw
Prince Charles delivered over to the torments of the damned in the lowest
regions of hell. And St. Eucherius demanding of the angel, his guide, what
was the reason thereof, the angel answered that it was by sentence of the
saints whom he had robbed of their possessions, and who, at the day of the
last judgment, will sit with God to judge the world.”
Whilst thus making use, at the expense of the Church, and for political
interests, of material force, Charles Martel was far from misunderstanding
her moral influence and the need he had of her support at the very time
when he was incurring her anathemas. Not content with defending
Christianity against Islamism, he aided it against Paganism by lending the
Christian missionaries in Germany and the north-west of Europe, amongst
others St. Willibrod and St. Boniface, the most effectual assistance. In
724, he addressed to all religious and political authorities that could be
reached by his influence, not only to the bishops, “but to the dukes,
counts, their vicars, our palatines, all our agents, our envoys, and our
friends this circular letter: ‘Know that a successor of the Apostles, our
father in Christ, Boniface, bishop, hath come unto us saying that we ought
to take him under our safeguard and protection. We do you to wit that we
do so very willingly. Wherefore we have thought proper to give him
confirmation thereof under our own hand, in order that, whithersoever he
may go, he may there be in peace and safety in the name of our affection
and under our safeguard; in such sort that he may be able everywhere to
render, do, and receive justice. And if he come to find himself in any
pass or necessity which cannot be determined by law, that he may remain in
peace and safety until he be come into our presence, he and all who shall
have hope in him or dependence on him. That none may dare to be
contrary-minded towards him or do him damage; and that he may rest at all
times in tranquillity and safety under our safeguard and protection. And
in order that this may be regarded as certified, we have subscribed these
letters with our own hand and sealed them with our ring.’”
Here were clearly no vague and meaningless words, written to satisfy
solicitation, and without a thought of their consequences: they were
urgent recommendations and precise injunctions, the most proper for
securing success to the protected in the name of the protector.
Accordingly St. Boniface wrote, soon after, from the heart of Germany,
“Without the patronage of the prince of the Franks, without his order and
the fear of his power, I could not guide the people, or defend the
priests, deacons, monks, or handmaids of God, or forbid in this country
the rites of the Pagans and their sacrilegious worship of idols.”
At the same time that he protected the Christian missionaries launched
into the midst of Pagan Germany, Charles Martel showed himself equally
ready to protect, but with as much prudence as good-will, the head of the
Christian Church. In 741, Pope Gregory III. sent to him two nuncios, the
first that ever entered France in such a character, to demand of him
succor against the Lombards, the Pope’s neighbors, who were threatening to
besiege Rome. These envoys took Charles Martel “so many presents that none
had ever seen or heard tell of the like,” and amongst them the keys of St.
Peter’s tomb, with a letter in which the Pope conjured Charles Martel not
to attach any credit to the representations or words of Luitprandt, king
of the Lombards, and to lend the Roman Church that effectual support
which, for some time past, she had been vainly expecting from the Franks
and their chief. “Let them come, we are told,” wrote the Pope, piteously,
“this Charles with whom ye have sought refuge, and the armies of the
Franks; let them sustain ye, if they can, and wrest ye from our hands.”
Charles Martel was in fact on good terms with Luitprandt, who had come to
his aid in his expeditions against the Arabs in Provence. He, however,
received the Pope’s nuncios with lively satisfaction and the most striking
proofs of respect; and he promised them, not to make war on the Lombards,
but to employ his influence with King Luitprandt to make him cease from
threatening Rome. He sent, in his turn, to the Pope two envoys of
distinction, Sigebert, abbot of St. Denis, and Grimon, abbot of Corbie,
with instructions to offer him rich presents and to really exert
themselves with the king of the Lombards to remove the dangers dreaded by
the Holy See. He wished to do something in favor of the Papacy to show
sincere good-will, without making his relations with useful allies
subordinate to the desires of the Pope.
Charles Martel had not time to carry out effectually with respect to the
Papacy this policy of protection and at the same time of independence; he
died at the close of this same year, October 22, 741, at Kiersy-sur-Oise,
aged fifty-two years, and his last act was the least wise of his life. He
had spent it entirely in two great works, the reestablishment throughout
the whole of Gaul of the Franco-Gallo-Roman empire, and the driving back
from the frontiers of this empire, of the Germans in the north and the
Arabs in the south. The consequence, as also the condition, of this double
success was the victory of Christianity over Paganism and Islamism.
Charles Martel endangered these results by falling back into the groove of
those Merovingian kings whose shadow he had allowed to remain on the
throne. He divided between his two legitimate sons, Pepin, called the
Short, from his small stature, and Carloman, this sole dominion which he
had with so much toil reconstituted and defended. Pepin had Neustria,
Burgundy, Provence, and the suzerainty of Aquitaine; Carloman, Austrasia,
Thuringia, and Allemannia. They both, at their father’s death, took only
the title of mayor of the palace, and, perhaps, of duke. The last but one
of the Merovingians, Thierry IV., had died in 737. For four years there
had been no king at all.
But when the works of men are wise and true, that is, in conformity with
the lasting wants of peoples, and the natural tendency of social facts,
they get over even the mistakes of their authors. Immediately after the
death of Charles Martel, the consequences of dividing his empire became
manifest. In the north, the Saxons, the Bavarians, and the Allemannians
renewed their insurrections. In the south, the Arabs of Septimania
recovered their hopes of effecting an invasion; and Hunald, Duke of
Aquitaine, who had succeeded his father Eudes, after his death in 735,
made a fresh attempt to break away from Frankish sovereignty and win his
independence. Charles Martel had left a young son, Grippo, whose
legitimacy had been disputed, but who was not slow to set up pretensions
and to commence intriguing against his brothers. Everywhere there burst
out that reactionary movement which arises against grand and difficult
works when the strong hand that undertook them is no longer by to maintain
them; but this movement was of short duration and to little purpose.
Brought up in the school and in the fear of their father, his two sons,
Pepin and Carloman, were inoculated with his ideas and example; they
remained united in spite of the division of dominions, and labored
together, successfully, to keep down, in the north the Saxons and
Bavarians, in the south the Arabs and Aquitanians, supplying want of unity
by union, and pursuing with one accord the constant aim of Charles Martel—abroad
the security and grandeur of the Frankish dominion, at home the cohesion
of all its parts and the efficacy of its government. Events came to the
aid of this wise conduct. Five years after the death of Charles Martel, in
746 in fact, Carloman, already weary of the burden of power, and seized
with a fit of religious zeal, abdicated his share of sovereignty, left his
dominions to his brother Pepin, had himself shorn by the hands of Pope
Zachary, and withdrew into Italy to the monastery of Monte Cassino. The
preceding year, in 745, Hunald, Duke of Aquitaine, with more patriotic and
equally pious views, also abdicated in favor of his son Waifre, whom he
thought more capable than himself of winning the independence of
Aquitaine, and went and shut himself up in a monastery in the island of
Rhe, where was the tomb of his father Eudes. In the course of divers
attempts at conspiracy and insurrection, the Frankish princes’ young
brother, Grippo, was killed in combat whilst crossing the Alps. The
furious internal dissensions amongst the Arabs of Spain and their
incessant wars with the Berbers did not allow them to pursue any great
enterprise in Gaul. Thanks to all these circumstances, Pepin found
himself, in 747, sole master of the heritage of Clovis and with the sole
charge of pursuing, in State and Church, his father’s work, which was the
unity and grandeur of Christian France.
Pepin, less enterprising than his father, but judicious, persevering, and
capable of discerning what was at the same time necessary and possible,
was well fitted to continue and consolidate what he would, probably, never
have begun and created.
Like his father, he, on arriving at power, showed pretensions to
moderation, or, it might be said, modesty. He did not take the title of
king; and, in concert with his brother Carloman, he went to seek, Heaven
knows in what obscure asylum, a forgotten Merovingian, son of Chilperic
II., the last but one of the sluggard kings, and made him king, the last
of his line, with the title of Childeric III., himself, as well as his
brother, taking only the style of mayor of the palace. But at the end of
ten years, and when he saw himself alone at the head of the Frankish
dominion, Pepin considered the moment arrived for putting an end to this
fiction. In 751, he sent to Pope Zachary at Rome, Burchard, bishop of
Wurtzhurg, and Fulrad, abbot of St. Denis, “to consult the Pontiff,” says
Eginhard, “on the subject of the kings then existing amongst the Franks,
and who bore only the name of king without enjoying a tittle of royal
authority.” The Pope, whom St. Boniface, the great missionary of Germany,
had prepared for the question, answered that “it was better to give the
title of king to him who exercised the sovereign power;” and next year, in
March, 752, in the presence and with the assent of the general assembly of
“leudes” and bishops gathered together at Soissons, Pepin was proclaimed
king of the Franks, and received from the hand of St. Boniface the sacred
anointment. They cut off the hair of the last Merovingian phantom,
Childeric III., and put him away in the monastery of St. Sithiu, at St.
Omer. Two years later, July 28, 754, Pope Stephen II., having come to
France to claim Pepin’s support against the Lombards, after receiving from
him assurance of it, “anointed him afresh with the holy oil in the church
of St. Denis to do honor in his person to the dignity of royalty,” and
conferred the same honor on the king’s two sons, Charles and Carloman. The
new Gallo-Frankish kingship and the Papacy, in the name of their common
faith and common interests, thus contracted an intimate alliance. The
young Charles was hereafter to become Charlemagne.
The same year, Boniface, whom, six years before, Pope Zachary had made
Archbishop of Mayence, gave up one day the episcopal dignity to his
disciple Lullus, charging him to carry on the different works himself had
commenced amongst the churches of Germany, and to uphold the faith of the
people. “As for me,” he added, “I will put myself on my road, for the time
of my passing away approacheth. I have longed for this departure, and none
can turn me from it; wherefore, my son, get all things ready, and place in
the chest with my books the winding-sheet to wrap up my old body.” And so
he departed with some of his priests and servants to go and evangelize the
Frisons, the majority of whom were still pagans and barbarians. He pitched
his tent on their territory and was arranging to celebrate there the
Lord’s Supper, when a band of natives came down and rushed upon the
archbishop’s retinue. The servitors surrounded him, to defend him and
themselves; and a battle began. “Hold, hold, my children,” cried the
arch-bishop; “Scripture biddeth us return good for evil. This is the day I
have long desired, and the hour of our deliverance is at hand. Be strong
in the Lord: hope in Him, and He will save your souls.” The barbarians
slew the holy man and the majority of his company. A little while after,
the Christians of the neighborhood came in arms and recovered the body of
St. Boniface. Near him was a book, which was stained with blood, and
seemed to have dropped from his hands; it contained several works of the
Fathers, and amongst others a writing of St. Ambrose “on the Blessing of
Death.” The death of the pious missionary was as powerful as his preaching
in converting Friesland. It was a mode of conquest worthy of the Christian
faith, and one of which the history of Christianity had already proved the
effectiveness.
St. Boniface did not confine himself to the evangelization of the pagans;
he labored ardently in the Christian Gallo-Frankish Church, to reform the
manners and ecclesiastical discipline, and to assure, whilst justifying,
the moral influence of the clergy by example as well as precept. The
Councils, which had almost fallen into desuetude in Gaul, became once more
frequent and active there; from 742 to 753 there may be counted seven,
presided over by St. Boniface, which exercised within the Church a
salutary action. King Pepin, recognizing the services which the Archbishop
of Mayence had rendered him, seconded his reformatory efforts at one time
by giving the support of his royal authority to the canons of the
Councils, held often simultaneously with and almost confounded with the
laic assemblies of the Franks, at another by doing justice to the protests
of the churches against the violence and spoliation to which they were
subjected. “There was an important point,” says M. Fauriel, “in respect of
which the position of Charles Martel’s sons turned out to be pretty nearly
the same as that of their father: it was touching the necessity of
assigning to warriors a portion of the ecclesiastical revenues. But they,
being more religious, perhaps, than Charles Martel, or more impressed with
the importance of humoring the priestly power, were more vexed and more
anxious about the necessity under which they found themselves of
continuing to despoil the churches and of persisting in a system which was
putting the finishing stroke to the ruin of all ecclesiastical discipline.
They were more eager to mitigate the evil and to offer the Church
compensation for their share in this evil to which it was not in their
power to put a stop. Accordingly at the March parade held at Leptines in
743, it was decided, in reference to ecclesiastical lands applied to the
military service: 1st, that the churches having the ownership of those
lands should share the revenue with the lay holder; 2d, that on the death
of a warrior in enjoyment of an ecclesiastical benefice, the benefice
should revert to the Church; 3d, that every benefice by deprivation
whereof any church would be reduced to poverty should be at once restored
to her. That this capitular was carried out, or even capable of being
carried out, is very doubtful; but the less Carloman and Pepin succeeded
in repairing the material losses incurred by the Church since the
accession of the Carlovingians, the more zealous they were in promoting
the growth of her moral power and the restoration of her discipline. . . .
That was the time at which there began to be seen the spectacle of the
national assemblies of the Franks, the gatherings of the March parades
transformed into ecclesiastical synods under the presidency of the titular
legate of the Roman Pontiff, and dictating, by the mouth of the political
authority, regulations and laws with the direct and formal aim of
restoring divine worship and ecclesiastical discipline, and of assuring
the spiritual welfare of the people.” (Fauriel, Histoire de la Gaule,
&c., t. III., p. 224.)
Pepin, after he had been proclaimed king and had settled matters with the
Church as well as the warlike questions remaining for him to solve
permitted, directed all his efforts towards the two countries which, after
his father’s example, he longed to reunite to the Gallo-Frankish monarchy,
that is, Septimania, still occupied by the Arabs, and Aquitaine, the
independence of which was stoutly and ably defended by Duke Eudes’
grandson, Duke Waifre. The conquest of Septimania was rather tedious than
difficult. The Franks, after having victoriously scoured the open country
of the district, kept invested during three years its capital, Narbonne,
where the Arabs of Spain, much weakened by their dissensions, vainly tried
to throw in re-enforcements. Besides the Mussulman Arabs the population of
the town numbered many Christian Goths, who were tired of suffering for
the defence of their oppressors, and who entered into secret negotiations
with the chiefs of Pepin’s army, the end of which was, that they opened
the gates of the town. In 759, then, after forty years of Arab rule,
Narbonne passed definitively under that of the Franks, who guaranteed to
the inhabitants free enjoyment of their Gothic or Roman law and of their
local institutions. It even appears that, in the province of Spain
bordering on Septimania, an Arab chief, called Soliman, who was in command
at Gerona and Barcelona, between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, submitted to
Pepin, himself and the country under him. This was an important event
indeed in the reign of Pepin, for here was the point at which Islamism,
but lately aggressive and victorious in Southern Europe, began to feel
definitively beaten and to recoil before Christianity.
The conquest of Aquitaine and Vasconia was much more keenly disputed and
for a much longer time uncertain. Duke Waifre was as able in negotiation
as in war: at one time he seemed to accept the pacific overtures of Pepin,
or, perhaps, himself made similar, without bringing about any result, at
another he went to seek and found even in Germany allies who caused Pepin
much embarrassment and peril. The population of Aquitaine hated the
Franks; and the war, which for their duke was a question of independent
sovereignty, was for themselves a question of passionate national feeling.
Pepin, who was naturally more humane and even more generous, it may be
said, in war than his predecessors had usually been, was nevertheless
induced, in his struggle against the Duke of Aquitaine, to ravage without
mercy the countries he scoured, and to treat the vanquished with great
harshness. It was only after nine years’ war and seven campaigns full of
vicissitudes that he succeeded, not in conquering his enemy in a decisive
battle, but in gaining over some servants who betrayed their master. In
the month of July, 759, “Duke Waifre was slain by his own folk, by the
king’s advice,” says Fredegaire; and the conquest of all Southern Gaul
carried the extent and power of the Gallo-Frankish monarchy farther and
higher than it had ever yet been, even under Clovis.
In 753, Pepin had made an expedition against the Britons of Armorica, had
taken Vannes, and “subjugated,” add certain chroniclers, “the whole of
Brittany.” In point of fact Brittany was no more subjugated by Pepin than
by his predecessors; all that can be said is, that the Franks resumed,
under him, an aggressive attitude towards the Britons, as if to vindicate
a right of sovereignty.
Exactly at this epoch Pepin was engaging in a matter which did not allow
him to scatter his forces hither and thither. It has been stated already,
that in 741 Pope Gregory III. had asked aid of the Franks against the
Lombards who were threatening Rome, and that, whilst fully entertaining
the Pope’s wishes, Charles Martel had been in no hurry to interfere by
deed in the quarrel. Twelve years later, in 753, Pope Stephen, in his turn
threatened by Astolphus, king of the Lombards, after vain attempts to
obtain guarantees of peace, repaired to Paris, and renewed to Pepin the
entreaties used by Zachary. It was difficult for Pepin to turn a deaf ear;
it was Zachary who had declared that he ought to be made king; Stephen
showed readiness to anoint him a second time, himself and his sons; and it
was the eldest of these sons, Charles, scarcely twelve years old, whom
Pepin, on learning the near arrival of the Pope, had sent to meet him and
give brilliancy to his reception. Stephen passed the winter at St. Denis,
and gained the favor of the people as well as that of the king. Astolphus
peremptorily refused to listen to the remonstrances of Pepin, who called
upon him to evacuate the towns in the exarchate of Ravenna, and to leave
the Pope unmolested in the environs of Rome as well as in Rome itself. At
the March parade held at Braine, in the spring of 754, the Franks approved
of the war against the Lombards; and at the end of the summer Pepin and
his army descended into Italy by Mount Cenis, the Lombards trying in vain
to stop them as they debouched into the valley of Suza. Astolphus beaten,
and, before long, shut up in Pavia, promised all that was demanded of him;
and Pepin and his warriors, laden with booty, returned to France, leaving
at Rome the Pope, who conjured them to remain a while in Italy, for to a
certainty, he said, king Astolphus would not keep his promises. The Pope
was right. So soon as the Franks had gone, the King of the Lombards
continued occupying the places in the exarchate and molesting the
neighborhood of Rome. The Pope, in despair and doubtful of his
auxiliaries’ return, conceived the idea of sending “to the king, the
chiefs, and the people of the Franks, a letter written, he said, by Peter,
Apostle of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, to announce to them that,
if they came in haste, he would aid them as if he were alive according to
the flesh amongst them, that they would conquer all their enemies and make
themselves sure of eternal life!” The plan was perfectly successful: the
Franks once more crossed the Alps with enthusiasm, once more succeeded in
beating the Lombards, and once more shut up in Pavia King Astolphus, who
was eager to purchase peace at any price. He obtained it on two principal
conditions: 1st, that he would not again make a hostile attack on Roman
territory or wage war against the Pope or people of Rome; 2d, that he
would henceforth recognize the sovereignty of the Franks, pay them
tribute, and cede forthwith to Pepin the towns and all the lands,
belonging to the jurisdiction of the Roman empire, which were at that time
occupied by the Lombards. By virtue of these conditions, Ravenna, Rimini,
Pesaro, that is to say, the Romagna, the Duchy of Urbino and a portion of
the Marches of Ancona, were at once given up to Pepin, who, regarding them
as his own direct conquest, the fruit of victory, disposed of them
forthwith, in favor of the Popes, by that famous deed of gift which
comprehended pretty nearly what has since formed the Roman States, and
which founded the temporal independence of the Papacy, the guarantee of
its independence in the exercise of the spiritual power.
At the head of the Franks as mayor of the palace from 741, and as king
from 752, Pepin had completed in France and extended in Italy the work
which his father, Charles Martel, had begun and carried on, from 714 to
741, in State and Church. He left France reunited in one and placed at the
head of Christian Europe. He died at the monastery of St. Denis, September
18, 768, leaving his kingdom and his dynasty thus ready to the hands of
his son, whom history has dubbed Charlemagne.
CHAPTER X
CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS WARS.
The most judicious minds are sometimes led blindly by tradition and habit,
rather than enlightened by reflection and experience. Pepin the Short
committed at his death the same mistake that his father, Charles Martel,
had committed: he divided his dominions between his two sons, Charles and
Carloman, thus destroying again that unity of the Gallo- Frankish monarchy
which his father and he had been at so much pains to establish. But, just
as had already happened in 746 through the abdication of Pepin’s brother,
events discharged the duty of repairing the mistake of men. After the
death of Pepin, and notwithstanding that of Duke Waifre, insurrection
broke out once more in Aquitaine; and the old duke, Hunald, issued from
his monastery in the island of Rhe to try and recover power and
independence. Charles and Carloman marched against him; but, on the march,
Carloman, who was jealous and thoughtless, fell out with his brother, and
suddenly quitted the expedition, taking away his troops. Charles was
obliged to continue it alone, which he did with complete success. At the
end of this first campaign, Pepin’s widow, the Queen-mother Bertha,
reconciled her two sons; but an unexpected incident, the death of Carloman
two years afterwards in 771, re-established unity more surely than the
reconciliation had re-established harmony. For, although Carloman left
sons, the grandees of his dominions, whether laic or ecclesiastical,
assembled at Corbeny, between Laon and Rheims, and proclaimed in his stead
his brother Charles, who thus became sole king of the
Gallo-Franco-Germanic monarchy. And as ambition and manners had become
less tinged with ferocity than they had been under the Merovingians, the
sons of Carloman were not killed or shorn or even shut up in a monastery:
they retired with their mother, Gerberge, to the court of Didier, king of
the Lombards. “King Charles,” says Eginhard, “took their departure
patiently, regarding it as of no importance.” Thus commenced the reign of
Charlemagne.
The original and dominant characteristic of the hero of this reign, that
which won for him, and keeps for him after more than ten centuries, the
name of Great, is the striking variety of his ambition, his faculties, and
his deeds. Charlemagne aspired to and attained to every sort of greatness,
military greatness, political greatness, and intellectual greatness; he
was an able warrior, an energetic legislator, a hero of poetry. And he
united, he displayed all these merits in a time of general and monotonous
barbarism, when, save in the Church, the minds of men were dull and
barren. Those men, few in number, who made themselves a name at that
epoch, rallied round Charlemagne and were developed under his patronage.
To know him well and appreciate him justly, he must be examined under
those various grand aspects, abroad and at home, in his wars and in his
government.
In Guizot’s History of Civilization in France is to be found a
complete table of the wars of Charlemagne, of his many different
expeditions in Germany, Italy, Spain, all the countries, in fact, that
became his dominion. A summary will here suffice. From 769 to 813, in
Germany and Western and Northern Europe, Charlemagne conducted thirty-one
campaigns against the Saxons, Frisons, Bavarians, Avars, Slavons, and
Danes; in Italy, five against the Lombards; in Spain, Corsica, and
Sardinia, twelve against the Arabs; two against the Greeks; and three in
Gaul itself, against the Aquitanians and the Britons; in all, fifty-three
expeditions; amongst which those he undertook against the Saxons, the
Lombards, and the Arabs, were long and difficult wars. It is undesirable
to recount them in detail, for the relation would be monotonous and
useless; but it is obligatory to make fully known their causes, their
characteristic incidents, and their results.
It has already been seen that, under the last Merovingian kings, the
Saxons were, on the right bank of the Rhine, in frequent collision with
the Franks, especially with the Austrasian Franks, whose territory they
were continually threatening and often invading. Pepin the Short had more
than once hurled them back far from the very uncertain frontiers of
Germanic Austrasia; and, on becoming king, he dealt his blows still
farther, and entered, in his turn, Saxony itself. “In spite of the Saxons’
stout resistance,” says Eginhard (Annales, t. i., p. 135), “he
pierced through the points they had fortified to bar entrance into their
country, and, after having fought here and there battles wherein fell many
Saxons, he forced them to promise that they would submit to his rule; and
that, every year, to do him honor, they would send to the general assembly
of the Franks a present of three hundred horses. When these conventions
were once settled, he insisted, to insure their performance, upon placing
them under the guarantee of rites peculiar to the Saxons; then he returned
with his army to Gaul.”
Charlemagne did not confine himself to resuming his father’s work; he
before long changed its character and its scope. In 772, being left sole
master of France after the death of his brother Carloman, he convoked at
Worms the general assembly of the Franks, “and took,” says Eginhard, “the
resolution of going and carrying war into Saxony. He invaded it without
delay, laid it waste with fire and sword, made himself master of the fort
of Ehresburg, and threw down the idol that the Saxons called Irminsul.”
And in what place was this first victory of Charlemagne won? Near the
sources of the Lippe, just where, more than seven centuries before, the
German Arminius (Herrmann) had destroyed the legions of Varus, and whither
Germanicus had come to avenge the disaster of Varus. This ground belonged
to Saxon territory; and this idol, called Irminsul, which was
thrown down by Charlemagne, was probably a monument raised in honor of
Arminius (Herrmann-Saule, or Herrmann’s pillar), whose name it called to
mind. The patriotic and hereditary pride of the Saxons was passionately
roused by this blow; and, the following year, “thinking to find in the
absence of the king the most favorable opportunity,” says Eginhard, they
entered the lands of the Franks, laid them waste in their turn, and,
paying back outrage for outrage, set fire to the church not long since
built at Fritzlar, by Boniface, martyr. From that time the question
changed its object as well as its aspect; it was no longer the repression
of Saxon invasions of France, but the conquest of Saxony by the Franks,
that was to be dealt with; it was between the Christianity of the Franks
and the national Paganism of the Saxons that the struggle was to take
place.
For thirty years such was its character. Charlemagne regarded the conquest
of Saxony as indispensable for putting a stop to the incursions of the
Saxons, and the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity as indispensable
for assuring the conquest of Saxony. The Saxons were defending at one and
the same time the independence of their country and the gods of their
fathers. Here was wherewithal to stir up and foment, on both sides, the
profoundest passions; and they burst forth, on both sides, with equal
fury. Whithersoever Charlemagne penetrated he built strong castles and
churches; and, at his departure, left garrisons and missionaries. When he
was gone the Saxons returned, attacked the forts and massacred the
garrisons and the missionaries. At the commencement of the struggle, a
priest of Anglo-Saxon origin, whom St. Willibrod, bishop of Utrecht, had
but lately consecrated, St. Liebwin in fact, undertook to go and preach
the Christian religion in the very heart of Saxony, on the banks of the
Weser, amidst the general assembly of the Saxons. “What do ye” said he,
cross in hand; “the idols ye worship live not, neither do they perceive:
they are the work of men’s hands; they can do nought either for themselves
or for others. Wherefore the one God, good and just, having compassion on
your errors, hath sent me unto you. If ye put not away your iniquity, I
foretell unto you a trouble that ye do not expect, and that the King of
Heaven hath ordained aforetime; there shall come a prince, strong and wise
and indefatigable, not from afar, but from nigh at hand, to fall upon you
like a torrent, in order to soften your hard hearts and bow down your
proud heads. At one rush he shall invade the country; he shall lay it
waste with fire and sword, and carry away your wives and children into
captivity.” A thrill of rage ran through the assembly; and already many of
those present had begun to cut, in the neighboring woods, stakes sharpened
to a point to pierce the priest, when one of the chieftains named Buto
cried aloud, “Listen, ye who are the most wise. There have often come unto
us ambassadors from neighboring peoples, Northmen, Slavons or Frisons; we
have received them in peace, and when their messages have been heard, they
have been sent away with a present. Here is an ambassador from a great
God, and ye would slay him!” Whether it were from sentiment or from
prudence, the multitude was calmed, or at any rate restrained; and for
this time the priest retired safe and sound.
Just as the pious zeal of the missionaries was of service to Charlemagne,
so did the power of Charlemagne support and sometimes preserve the
missionaries. The mob, even in the midst of its passions, is not
throughout or at all times inaccessible to fear. The Saxons were not one
and the same nation, constantly united in one and the same assembly and
governed by a single chieftain. Three populations of the same race,
distinguished by names borrowed from their geographical situation, just as
had happened amongst the Franks in the case of the Austrasians and
Neustrians, to wit, Eastphalian or eastern Saxons, Westphalian or western,
and Angrians, formed the Saxon confederation. And to them was often added
a fourth peoplet of the same origin, closer to the Danes and called
North-Albingians, inhabitants of the northern district of the Elbe. These
four principal Saxon populations were sub-divided into a large number of
tribes, who had their own particular chieftains, and who often decided,
each for itself, their conduct and their fate. Charlemagne, knowing how to
profit by this want of cohesion and unity amongst his foes, attacked now
one and now another of the large Saxon peoplets or the small Saxon tribes,
and dealt separately with each of them, according as he found them
inclined to submission or resistance. After having, in four or five
successive expeditions, gained victories and sustained checks, he thought
himself sufficiently advanced in his conquest to put his relations with
the Saxons to a grand trial. In 777, he resolved, says Eginhard, “to go
and hold, at the place called Paderborn (close to Saxony) the general
assembly of his people. On his arrival he found there assembled the senate
and people of this perfidious nation, who, conformably to his orders, had
repaired thither, seeking to deceive him by a false show of submission and
devotion. . . . They earned their pardon, but on this condition, however,
that, if hereafter they broke their engagements, they would be deprived of
country and liberty. A great number amongst them had themselves baptized
on this occasion; but it was with far from sincere intentions that they
had testified a desire to become Christians.”
There had been absent from this great meeting a Saxon chieftain called
Wittikind, son of Wernekind, king of the Saxons at the north of the Elbe.
He had espoused the sister of Siegfried, king of the Danes; and he was the
friend of Ratbod, king of the Frisons. A true chieftain at heart as well
as by descent, he was made to be the hero of the Saxons just as, seven
centuries before, the Cheruscan Herrmann (Arminius) had been the hero of
the Germans. Instead of repairing to Paderborn, Wittikind had left Saxony,
and taken refuge with his brother-in-law, the king of the Danes. Thence he
encouraged his Saxon compatriots, some to persevere in their resistance,
others to repent them of their show of submission. War began again; and
Wittikind hastened back to take part in it. In 778 the Saxons advanced as
far as the Rhine; but, “not having been able to cross this river,” says
Eginhard, “they set themselves to lay waste with fire and sword all the
towns and all the villages from the city of Duitz (opposite Cologne) as
far as the confluence of the Moselle. The churches as well as the houses
were laid in ruins from top to bottom. The enemy, in his frenzy, spared
neither age nor sex, wishing to show thereby that he had invaded the
territory of the Franks, not for plunder, but for revenge!” For three
years the struggle continued, more confined in area, but more and more
obstinate. Many of the Saxon tribes submitted; many Saxons were baptized;
and Siegfried, king of the Danes, sent to Charlemagne a deputation, as if
to treat for peace. Wittikind had left Denmark; but he had gone across to
her neighbors, the Northmen; and, thence re-entering Saxony, he kindled
there an insurrection as fierce as it was unexpected. In 782 two of
Charlemagne’s lieutenants were beaten on the banks of the Weser, and
killed in the battle, together with four counts and twenty leaders, the
noblest in the army; indeed the Franks were nearly all exterminated. “At
news of this disaster,” says Eginhard, “Charlemagne, without losing a
moment, re-assembled an army and set out for Saxony. He summoned into his
presence all the chieftains of the Saxons and demanded of them who had
been the promoters of the revolt. All agreed in denouncing Wittikind as
the author of this treason. But as they could not deliver him up, because
immediately after his sudden attack he had taken refuge with the Northmen,
those who, at his instigation, had been accomplices in the crime, were
placed, to the number of four thousand five hundred, in the hands of the
king; and, by his order, all had their heads cut off the same day, at a
place called Werden, on the river Aller. After this deed of vengeance the
king retired to Thionville to pass the winter there.”
But the vengeance did not put an end to the war. “Blood calls for blood,”
were words spoken in the English parliament, in 1643, by Sir Benjamin
Rudyard, one of the best citizens of his country in her hour of
revolution. For three years Charlemagne had to redouble his efforts to
accomplish in Saxony, at the cost of Frankish as well as Saxon blood, his
work of conquest and conversion: “Saxony,” he often repeated, “must be
christianized or wiped out.” At last, in 785, after several victories
which seemed decisive, he went and settled down in his strong castle of
Ehresburg, “whither he made his wife and children come, being resolved to
remain there all the bad season,” says Eginhard, and applying himself
without cessation to scouring the country of the Saxons and wearing them
out by his strong and indomitable determination. But determination did not
blind him to prudence and policy. “Having learned that Wittikind and Abbio
(another great Saxon chieftain) were abiding in the part of Saxony
situated on the other side of the Elbe, he sent to them Saxon envoys to
prevail upon them to renounce their perfidy, and come, without hesitation,
and trust themselves to him. They, conscious of what they had attempted,
dared not at first trust to the king’s word; but having obtained from him
the promise they desired of impunity, and, besides, the hostages they
demanded as guarantee of their safety, and who were brought to them, on
the king’s behalf, by Amalwin, one of the officers of his court, they came
with the said lord and presented themselves before the king in his palace
of Attigny [Attigny-sur-Aisne, whither Charlemagne had now returned] and
there received baptism.”
Charlemagne did more than amnesty Wittikind; he named him Duke of Saxony,
but without attaching to the title any right of sovereignty. Wittikind, on
his side, did more than come to Attigny and get baptized there; he gave up
the struggle, remained faithful to his new engagements, and led, they say,
so Christian a life, that some chroniclers have placed him on the list of
saints. He was killed in 807, in a battle against Gerold, duke of Suabia,
and his tomb is still to be seen at Ratisbonne. Several families of
Germany hold him for their ancestor; and some French genealogists have,
without solid ground, discovered in him the grandfather of Robert the
Strong, great-grandfather of Hugh Capet. However that may be, after making
peace with Wittikind, Charlemagne had still, for several years, many
insurrections to repress and much rigor to exercise in Saxony, including
the removal of certain Saxon peoplets out of their country and the
establishment of foreign colonists in the territories thus become vacant;
but the great war was at an end, and Charlemagne might consider Saxony
incorporated in his dominions.
He had still, in Germany and all around, many enemies to fight and many
campaigns to re-open. Even amongst the Germanic populations, which were
regarded as reduced under the sway of the king of the Franks, some, the
Frisons and Saxons as well as others, were continually agitating for the
recovery of their independence. Farther off towards the north, east, and
south, people differing in origin and language—Avars, Huns, Slavons,
Bulgarians, Danes, and Northmen—were still pressing or beginning to
press upon the frontiers of the Frankish dominion, for the purpose of
either penetrating within or settling at the threshold as powerful and
formidable neighbors. Charlemagne had plenty to do, with the view at one
time of checking their incursions and at another of destroying or hurling
back to a distance their settlements; and he brought his usual vigor and
perseverance to bear on this second struggle. But by the conquest of
Saxony he had attained his direct national object: the great flood of
population from East to West came, and broke against the Gallo-Franco-
Germanic dominion as against an insurmountable rampart.
This was not, however, Charlemagne’s only great enterprise at this epoch,
nor the only great struggle he had to maintain. Whilst he was incessantly
fighting in Germany, the work of policy commenced by his father Pepin in
Italy called for his care and his exertions. The new king of the Lombards,
Didier, and the new Pope, Adrian I., had entered upon a new war; and
Dither was besieging Rome, which was energetically defended by the Pope
and its inhabitants. In 773, Adrian invoked the aid of the king of the
Franks, whom his envoys succeeded, not without difficulty, in finding at
Thionville. Charlemagne could not abandon the grand position left him by
his father as protector of the Papacy and as patrician of Rome. The
possessions, moreover, wrested by Didier from the Pope were exactly those
which Pepin had won by conquest from King Astolphus, and had presented to
the Papacy. Charlemagne was, besides, on his own account, on bad terms
with the king of the Lombards, whose daughter, Desiree, he had married,
and afterwards repudiated and sent home to her father, in order to marry
Hildegarde, a Suabian by nation. Didier, in dudgeon, had given an asylum
to Carloman’s widow and sons, on whose intrigues Charlemagne kept a
watchful eye. Being prudent and careful of appearances, even when he was
preparing to strike a heavy blow, Charlemagne tried, by means of special
envoys, to obtain from the king of the Lombards what the Pope demanded. On
Didier’s refusal he at once set to work, convoked the general meeting of
the Franks, at Geneva, in the autumn of 773, gained them over, not without
encountering some objections, to the projected Italian expedition, and
forthwith commenced the campaign with two armies. One was to cross the
Valais and descend upon Lombardy by Mount St. Bernard; Charlemagne in
person led the other, by Mount Cenis. The Lombards, at the outlet of the
passes of the Alps, offered a vigorous resistance; but when the second
army had penetrated into Italy by Mount St. Bernard, Didier, threatened in
his rear, retired precipitately, and, driven from position to position,
was obliged to go and shut himself up in Pavia, the strongest place in his
kingdom, whither Charlemagne, having received on the march the submission
of the principal counts and nearly all the towns of Lombardy, came
promptly to besiege him.
To place textually before the reader a fragment of an old chronicle will
serve better than any modern description to show the impression of
admiration and fear produced upon his contemporaries by Charlemagne, his
person and his power. At the close of this ninth century a monk of the
abbey of St. Gall, in Switzerland, had collected, direct from the mouth of
one of Charlemagne’s warriors, Adalbert, numerous stories of his campaigns
and his life. These stories are full of fabulous legends, puerile
anecdotes, distorted reminiscences, and chronological errors, and they are
written sometimes with a credulity and exaggeration of language which
raise a smile; but they reveal the state of men’s minds and fancies within
the circle of Charlemagne’s influence and at the sight of him. This monk
gives a naive account of Charlemagne’s arrival before Pavia and of the
king of the Lombards’ disquietude at his approach. Didier had with him at
that time one of Charlemagne’s most famous comrades, Ogier the Dane, who
fills a prominent place in the romances and epopoeas, relating to
chivalry, of that age. Ogier had quarrelled with his great chief and taken
refuge with the king of the Lombards. It is probable that his Danish
origin and his relations with the king of the Danes, Gottfried, for a long
time an enemy of the Franks, had something to do with his misunderstanding
with Charlemagne. However that may have been, “when Didier and Ogger (for
so the monk calls him) heard that the dread monarch was coming, they
ascended a tower of vast height, whence they could watch his arrival from
afar off and from every quarter. They saw, first of all, engines of war
such as must have been necessary for the armies of Darius or Julius
Caesar. ‘Is not Charles,’ asked Didier of Ogger, ‘with this great army?’
But the other answered, ‘No.’ The Lombard, seeing afterwards an immense
body of soldiery gathered from all quarters of the vast empire, said to
Ogger, ‘Certes, Charles advanceth in triumph in the midst of this throng.’
‘No, not yet; he will not appear so soon,’ was the answer. ‘What should we
do, then,’ rejoined Didier, who began to be perturbed, ‘should he come
accompanied by a larger band of warriors?’ ‘You will see what he is when
he comes,’ replied Ogger, ‘but as to what will become of us I know
nothing.’ As they were thus parleying appeared the body of guards that
knew no repose; and at this sight the Lombard, overcome with dread, cried,
‘This time ‘tis surely Charles.’ ‘No,’ answered Ogger, ‘not yet.’ In their
wake came the bishops, the abbots, the ordinaries of the chapels royal,
and the counts; and then Didier, no longer able to bear the light of day
or to face death, cried out with groans, ‘Let us descend and hide
ourselves in the bowels of the earth, far from the face and the fury of so
terrible a foe. Trembling the while, Ogger, who knew by experience what
were the power and might of Charles, and who had learned the lesson by
long consuetude in better days, then said, ‘When ye shall behold the crops
shaking for fear in the fields, and the gloomy Po and the Ticino
overflowing the walls of the city with their waves blackened with steel
(iron), then may ye think that Charles is coming.’ He had not ended these
words when there began to be seen in the west, as it were a black cloud,
raised by the north-west wind or by Boreas, which turned the brightest day
into awful shadows. But as the emperor drew nearer and nearer, the gleam
of arms caused to shine on the people shut up within the city a day more
gloomy than any kind of night. And then appeared Charles himself, that man
of steel, with his head encased in a helmet of steel, his hands garnished
with gauntlets of steel, his heart of steel and his shoulders of marble
protected by a cuirass of steel, and his left hand armed with a lance of
steel which he held aloft in the air, for as to his right hand he kept
that continually on the hilt of his invincible sword. The outside of his
thighs, which the rest, for their greater ease in mounting a horseback,
were wont to leave unshackled even by straps, he wore encircled by plates
of steel. What shall I say concerning his boots? All the army were wont to
have them invariably of steel; on his buckler there was nought to be seen
but steel; his horse was of the color and the strength of steel. All those
who went before the monarch, all those who marched at his side, all those
who followed after, even the whole mass of the army, had armor of the like
sort, so far as the means of each permitted. The fields and the highways
were covered with steel: the points of steel reflected the rays of the
sun; and this steel, so hard, was borne by a people with hearts still
harder. The flash of steel spread terror through-out the streets of the
city. ‘What steel! alack, what steel!’ Such were the bewildered cries the
citizens raised. The firmness of manhood and of youth gave way at sight of
the steel; and the steel paralyzed the wisdom of graybeards. That which I,
poor tale-teller, mumbling and toothless, have attempted to depict in a
long description, Ogger perceived at one rapid glance, and said to Didier,
‘Here is what ye have so anxiously sought:’ and whilst uttering these
words he fell down almost lifeless.”
The monk of St. Gall does King Didier and his people wrong. They showed
more firmness and valor than he ascribes to them: they resisted
Charlemagne obstinately, and repulsed his first assaults so well that he
changed the siege into an investment and settled down before Pavia, as if
making up his mind for a long operation. His camp became a town; he sent
for Queen Hildegarde and her court; and he had a chapel built, where he
celebrated the festival of Christmas. But on the arrival of spring, close
upon the festival of Easter, 774, wearied with the duration of the
investment, he left to his lieutenants the duty of keeping it up, and,
attended by a numerous and brilliant following, set off for Rome, whither
the Pope was urgently pressing him to come.
On Holy Saturday, April 1, 774, Charlemagne found, at three miles from
Rome, the magistrates and the banner of the city, sent forward by the Pope
to meet him; at one mile all the municipal bodies and the pupils of the
schools carrying palm-branches and singing hymns; and at the gate of the
city, the cross, which was never taken out save for exarchs and
patricians. At sight of the cross Charlemagne dismounted, entered Rome on
foot, ascended the steps of the ancient basilica of St. Peter, repeating
at each step a sign of respectful piety, and was received at the top by
the Pope himself. All around him and in the streets a chant was sung,
“Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord!” At his entry and
during his sojourn at Rome Charlemagne gave the most striking proofs of
Christian faith and respect for the head of the Church. According to the
custom of pilgrims he visited all the basilicas, and in that of St. Maria
Maggiore he performed his solemn devotions. Then, passing to temporal
matters, he caused to be brought and read over, in his private conferences
with the Pope, the deed of territorial gift made by his father Pepin to
Stephen II., and with his own lips dictated the confirmation of it, adding
thereto a new gift of certain territories which he was in course of
wresting by conquest from the Lombards. Pope Adrian, on his side, rendered
to him, with a mixture of affection and dignity, all the honors and all
the services which could at one and the same time satisfy and exalt the
king and the priest, the protector and the protected. He presented to
Charlemagne a book containing a collection of the canons written by the
pontiffs from the origin of the Church, and he put at the beginning of the
book, which was dedicated to Charlemagne, an address in forty-five
irregular verses, written with his own hand, which formed an anagram:
“Pope Adrian to his most excellent son Charlemagne, king.” (Domino
excellentissimo filio Carolo Magno regi Ipadrianus papa). At the same
time he encouraged him to push his victory to the utmost and make himself
king of the Lombards, advising him, however, not to incorporate his
conquest with the Frankish dominions, as it would wound the pride of the
conquered people to be thus absorbed by the conquerors, and to take merely
the title of “King of the Franks and Lombards.” Charlemagne appreciated
and accepted this wise advice; for he could preserve proper limits in his
ambition and in the hour of victory. Three years afterwards he even did
more than Pope Adrian had advised. In 777 Queen Hildegarde bore him a son,
Pepin, whom in 781 Charlemagne had baptized and anointed king of Italy at
Rome by the Pope, thus separating not only the two titles, but also the
two kingdoms, and restoring to the Lombards a national existence, feeling
quite sure that, so long as he lived, the unity of his different dominions
would not be imperilled. Having thus regulated at Rome his own affairs and
those of the Church, he returned to his camp, took Pavia, received the
submission of all the Lombard dukes and counts, save one only, Aregisius,
duke of Beneventum, and entered France again, taking with him as prisoner
King Didier, whom he banished to a monastery, first at Liege and then at
Corbie, where the dethroned Lombard, say the chroniclers, ended his days
in saintly fashion.
The prompt success of this war in Italy, undertaken at the appeal of the
Head of the Church, this first sojourn of Charlemagne at Rome, the
spectacles he had witnessed, and the homage he had received, exercised
over him, his plans, and his deeds, a powerful influence. This rough
Frankish warrior, chief of a people who were beginning to make a brilliant
appearance upon the stage of the world, and issue himself of a new line,
had a taste for what was grand, splendid, ancient, and consecrated by time
and public respect; he understood and estimated at its full worth the
moral force and importance of such allies. He departed from Rome in 774,
more determined than ever to subdue Saxony, to the advantage of the Church
as well as of his own power, and to promote, in the South as in the North,
the triumph of the Frankish Christian dominion.
Three years afterwards, in 777, he had convoked at Paderborn, in
Westphalia, that general assembly of his different peoples at which
Wittikind did not attend, and which was destined to bring upon the Saxons
a more and more obstinate war. “The Saracen Ibn-al-Arabi,” says Eginhard,
“came to this town, to present himself before the king. He had arrived
from Spain, together with other Saracens in his train, to surrender to the
king of the Franks himself and all the towns which the king of the
Saracens had confided to his keeping.” For a long time past the Christians
of the West had given the Mussulmans, Arab or other, the name of Saracens.
Ibn-al-Arabi was governor of Saragossa, and one of the Spanish Arab
chieftains in league against Abdel-Rhaman, the last offshoot of the Ommiad
khalifs, who, with the assistance of the Berbers, had seized the
government of Spain. Amidst the troubles of his country and his nation,
Ibn-al-Arabi summoned to his aid, against Abdel-Rhaman, the Franks and the
Christians, just as, but lately, Maurontius, duke of Arles, had summoned
to Provence, against Charles Martel, the Arabs and the Mussulmans.
Charlemagne accepted the summons with alacrity. With the coming of spring
in the following year, 778, and with the full assent of his chief
warriors, he began his march towards the Pyrenees, crossed the Loire, and
halted at Casseneuil, at the confluence of the Lot and the Garonne, to
celebrate there the festival of Easter, and to make preparations for his
expedition thence. As he had but lately done for his campaign in Italy
against the Lombards, he divided his forces into two armies one composed
of Austrasians, Neustrians, Burgundians, and divers German contingents,
and commanded by Charlemagne in person, was to enter Spain by the valley
of Roncesvalles, in the western Pyrenees, and make for Pampeluna; the
other, consisting of Provenccals, Septimanians, Lombards, and other
populations of the South, under the command of Duke Bernard, who had
already distinguished himself in Italy, had orders to penetrate into Spain
by the eastern Pyrenees, to receive on the march the submission of Gerona
and Barcelona, and not to halt till they were before Saragossa, where the
two armies were to form a junction, and which Ibn- al-Arabi had promised
to give up to the king of the Franks. According to this plan, Charlemagne
had to traverse the territories of Aquitaine and Vasconia, domains of Duke
Lupus II., son of Duke Waifre, so long the foe of Pepin the Short, a
Merovingian by descent, and in all these qualities little disposed to
favor Charlemagne. However, the march was accomplished without difficulty.
The king of the Franks treated his powerful vassal well; and Duke Lupus
swore to him afresh, “or for the first time,” says M. Fauriel, “submission
and fidelity; but the event soon proved that it was not without umbrage or
without all the feelings of a true son of Waifre that he saw the Franks
and the son of Pepin so close to him.”
The aggressive campaign was an easy and a brilliant one. Charles with his
army entered Spain by the valley of Roncesvalles without encountering any
obstacle. On his arrival before Pampeluna the Arab governor surrendered
the place to him, and Charlemagne pushed forward vigorously to Saragossa.
But there fortune changed. The presence of foreigners and Christians on
the soil of Spain caused a suspension of interior quarrels amongst the
Arabs, who rose in mass, at all points, to succor Saragossa. The besieged
defended themselves with obstinacy; there was more scarcity of provisions
amongst the besiegers than inside the place; sickness broke out amongst
them; they were incessantly harassed from without; and rumors of a fresh
rising amongst the Saxons reached Charlemagne. The Arabs demanded
negotiation. To decide the king of the Franks upon an abandonment of the
siege, they offered him “an immense quantity of gold,” say the
chroniclers, hostages, and promises of homage and fidelity. Appearances
had been saved; Charlemagne could say, and even perhaps believe, that he
had pushed his conquests as far as the Ebro; he decided on retreat, and
all the army was set in motion to recross the Pyrenees. On arriving before
Pampeluna, Charlemagne had its walls completely razed to the ground, “in
order that,” as he said, “that city might not be able to revolt.” The
troops entered those same passes of Roncesvalles which they had traversed
without obstacle a few weeks before; and the advance-guard and the main
body of the army were already clear of them. The account of what happened
shall be given in the words of Eginhard, the only contemporary historian
whose account, free from all exaggeration, can be considered authentic.
“The king,” he says, “brought back his army without experiencing any loss,
save that at the summit of the Pyrenees he suffered somewhat from the
perfidy of the Vascons (Basques). Whilst the army of the Franks,
embarrassed in a narrow defile, was forced by the nature of the ground to
advance in one long, close line, the Basques, who were in ambush on the
crest of the mountain (for the thickness of the forest with which these
parts are covered is favorable to ambuscade), descend and fall suddenly on
the baggage-train and on the troops of the rear-guard, whose duty it was
to cover all in their front, and precipitate them to the bottom of the
valley. There took place a fight in which the Franks were killed to a man.
The Basques, after having plundered the baggage-train, profited by the
night, which had come on, to disperse rapidly. They owed all their success
in this engagement to the lightness of their equipment and to the nature
of the spot where the action took place; the Franks, on the contrary,
being heavily armed and in an unfavorable position, struggled against too
many disadvantages. Eginhard, master of the household of the king; Anselm,
count of the palace; and Roland, prefect of the marches of Brittany, fell
in this engagement. There were no means, at the time, of taking revenge
for this cheek; for after their sudden attack, the enemy dispersed to such
good purpose that there was no gaining any trace of the direction in which
they should be sought for.”
History says no more; but in the poetry of the people there is a longer
and a more faithful memory than in the court of kings. The disaster of
Roncesvalles and the heroism of the warriors who perished there became, in
France, the object of popular sympathy and the favorite topic for the
exercise of the popular fancy. The Song of Roland, a real Homeric
poem in its great beauty, and yet rude and simple as became its national
character, bears witness to the prolonged importance attained in Europe by
this incident in the history of Charlemagne. Three centuries later the
comrades of William the Conqueror, marching to battle at Hastings for the
possession of England, struck up The Song of Roland “to prepare
themselves for victory or death,” says M. Vitel, in his vivid estimate and
able translation of this poetical monument of the manners and first
impulses towards chivalry of the middle ages. There is no determining how
far history must be made to participate in these reminiscences of national
feeling; but, assuredly, the figures of Roland and Oliver, and Archbishop
Turpin, and the pious, unsophisticated and tender character of their
heroism are not pure fables invented by the fancy of a poet, or the
credulity of a monk. If the accuracy of historical narrative must not be
looked for in them, their moral truth must be recognized in their
portrayal of a people and an age.
The political genius of Charlemagne comprehended more fully than would be
imagined from his panegyrist’s brief and dry account all the gravity of
the affair of Roncesvalles. Not only did he take immediate vengeance by
hanging Duke Lupus of Aquitaine, whose treason had brought down this
mishap, and by reducing his two sons, Adairic and Sancho, to a more feeble
and precarious condition, but he resolved to treat Aquitaine as he had but
lately treated Italy, that is to say, to make of it, according to the
correct definition of M. Fauriel, “a special kingdom,” an integral
portion, indeed, of the Frankish empire, but with an especial destination,
which was that of resisting the invasions of the Andalusian Arabs, and
confining them as much as possible to the soil of the Peninsula. This was,
in some sort, giving back to the country its primary task as an
independent duchy; and it was the most natural and most certain way of
making the Aquitanians useful subjects by giving play to their national
vanity, to their pretensions of forming a separate people, and to their
hopes of once more becoming, sooner or later, an independent nation. Queen
Hildegarde, during her husband’s sojourn at Casseneuil, in 778, had borne
him a son, whom he called Louis, and who was, afterwards, Louis the
Debonnair. Charlemagne, summoned a second time to Rome, in 781, by the
quarrels of Pope Adrian I. with the imperial court of Constantinople,
brought with him his two sons, Pepin aged only four years, and Louis only
three years, and had them anointed by the Pope, the former King of Italy,
and the latter King of Aquitaine. “On returning from Rome to Austrasia,
Charlemagne sent Louis at once to take possession of his kingdom. From the
banks of the Meuse to Orleans the little prince was carried in his cradle;
but once on the Loire, this manner of travelling beseemed him no longer;
his conductors would that his entry into his dominions should have a manly
and warrior-like appearance; they clad him in arms proportioned to his
height and age; they put him and held him on horseback; and it was in such
guise that he entered Aquitaine. He came thither accompanied by the
officers who were to form his council of guardians, men chosen by
Charlemagne, with care, amongst the Frankish ‘leudes,’ distinguished not
only for bravery and firmness, but also for adroitness, and such as they
should be to be neither deceived nor seared by the cunning, fickle, and
turbulent populations with whom they would have to deal.” From this period
to the death of Charlemagne, and by his sovereign influence, though all
the while under his son’s name, the government of Aquitaine was a series
of continued efforts to hurl back the Arabs of Spain beyond the Ebro, to
extend to that river the dominion of the Franks, to divert to that end the
forces as well as the feelings of the populations of Southern Gaul, and
thus to pursue, in the South as in the North, against the Arabs as well as
against the Saxons and Huns, the grand design of Charlemagne, which was
the repression of foreign invasions and the triumph of Christian France
over Asiatic Paganism and Islamism.
Although continually obliged to watch, and often still to fight,
Charlemagne might well believe that he had nearly gained his end. He had
everywhere greatly extended the frontiers of the Frankish dominions and
subjugated the populations comprised in his conquests. He had proved that
his new frontiers would be vigorously defended against new invasions or
dangerous neighbors. He had pursued the Huns and the Saxons to the
confines of the empire of the East, and the Saracens to the islands of
Corsica and Sardinia. The centre of the dominion was no longer in ancient
Gaul; he had transferred it to a point not far from the Rhine, in the
midst and within reach of the Germanic populations, at the town of
Aix-la-Chapelle, which he had founded, and which was his favorite
residence; but the principal parts of the Gallo-Frankish kingdom,
Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy, were effectually welded in one single
mass. What he had done with Southern Gaul has but just been pointed out:
how he had both separated it from his own kingdom and still retained it
under his control. Two expeditions into Armorica, without taking entirely
from the Britons their independence, had taught them real deference, and
the great warrior Roland, installed as count upon their frontier, warned
them of the peril any rising would encounter. The moral influence of
Charlemagne was on a par with his material power; he had everywhere
protected the missionaries of Christianity; he had twice entered Rome,
also in the character of protector, and he could count on the faithful
support of the Pope at least as much as the Pope could count on him. He
had received embassies and presents from the sovereigns of the East,
Christian and Mussulman, from the emperors at Constantinople and the
khalifs at Bagdad. Everywhere, in Europe, in Africa, and in Asia, he was
feared and respected by kings and people. Such, at the close of the eighth
century, were, so far as he was concerned, the results of his wars, of the
superior capacity he had displayed, and of the successes he had won and
kept.
In 799 he received, at Aix-la-Chapelle, news of serious disturbances which
had broken out at Rome; that Pope Leo III. had been attacked by
conspirators, who, after pulling out, it was said, his eyes and his
tongue, had shut him up in the monastery of St. Erasmus, whence he had
with great difficulty escaped, and that he had taken refuge with
Winigisius, duke of Spoleto, announcing his intention of repairing thence
to the Frankish king. Leo was already known to Charlemagne; at his
accession to the pontificate, in 795, he had sent to him, as to the
patrician and defender of Rome, the keys of the prison of St. Peter and
the banner of the city. Charlemagne showed a disposition to receive him
with equal kindness and respect. The Pope arrived, in fact, at Paderborn,
passed some days there, according to Eginhard, and returned to Rome on the
30th of November, 799, at ease regarding his future, but without knowledge
on the part of any one of what had been settled between the king of the
Franks and him. Charlemagne remained all the winter at Aix-la-Chapelle,
spent the first months of the year 800 on affairs connected with Western
France, at Rouen, Tours, Orleans, and Paris, and, returning to Mayence in
the month of August, then for the first time announced to the general
assembly of Franks his design of making a journey to Italy. He repaired
thither, in fact, and arrived on the 23d of November, 800, at the gates of
Rome. The Pope received him there as he was dismounting; then, the next
day, standing on the steps of the basilica of St. Peter and amidst general
hallelujahs, he introduced the king into the sanctuary of the blessed
apostle, glorifying and thanking the Lord for this happy event. Some days
were spent in examining into the grievances which had been set down to the
Pope’s account, and in receiving two monks arrived from Jerusalem to
present to the king, with the patriarch’s blessing, the keys of the Holy
Sepulchre and Calvary, as well as the sacred standard. Lastly, on the 25th
of December, 800, “the day of the Nativity of our Lord,” says Eginhard,
“the king came into the basilica of the blessed St. Peter, apostle, to
attend the celebration of mass. At the moment when, in his place before
the altar, he was bowing down to pray, Pope Leo placed on his head a
crown, and all the Roman people shouted, ‘Long life and victory to Charles
Augustus, crowned by God, the great and pacific emperor of the Romans!’
After this proclamation the pontiff prostrated himself before him and paid
him adoration, according to the custom established in the days of the old
emperors; and thenceforward Charles, giving up the title of patrician,
bore that of Emperor and Augustus.”
Eginhard adds, in his Life of Charlemagne, “The king at first testified
great aversion for this dignity, for he declared that, notwithstanding the
importance of the festival, he would not on that day have entered the
church, if he could have foreseen the intentions of the sovereign pontiff.
However, this event excited the jealousy of the Roman emperors (of
Constantinople), who showed great vexation at it; but Charles met their
bad graces with nothing but great patience, and thanks to this
magnanimity, which raised him so far above them, he managed, by sending to
them frequent embassies and giving them in his letters the name of
brother, to triumph over their conceit.”
No one, probably, believed in the ninth century, and no one, assuredly,
will nowadays believe, that Charlemagne was innocent beforehand of what
took place on the 25th of December, 800, in the basilica of St. Peter. It
is doubtful, also, if he were seriously concerned about the ill-temper of
the emperors of the East. He had wit enough to understand the value which
always remains attached to old traditions, and he might have taken some
pains to secure their countenance to his title of emperor; but all his
contemporaries believed, and he also undoubtedly believed, that he had on
that day really won and set up again the Roman empire.
CHAPTER XI.
CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS GOVERNMENT.
What, then, was the government of this empire of which Charlemagne was
proud to assume the old title? How did this German warrior govern that
vast dominion which, thanks to his conquests, extended from the Elbe to
the Ebro, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean; which comprised nearly
all Germany, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and the north of Italy and of
Spain, and which, sooth to say, was still, when Charlemagne caused himself
to be made emperor, scarce more than the hunting-ground and the
battle-field of all the swarms of barbarians who tried to settle on the
ruins of the Roman world they had invaded and broken to pieces? The
government of Charlemagne in the midst of this chaos is the striking,
complicated, and transitory fact which is now to be passed in review.
A word of warning must be first of all given touching this word
government, with which it is impossible to dispense. For a long time past
the word has entailed ideas of national unity, general organization, and
regular and efficient power. There has been no lack of revolutions which
have changed dynasties and the principles and forms of the supreme power
in the State; but they have always left existing, under different names,
the practical machinery whereby the supreme power makes itself felt and
exercises its various functions over the whole country. Open the Almanac,
whether it be called the Imperial, the Royal, or the National, and you
will find there always the working system of the government of France; all
the powers and their agents, from the lowest to the highest, are there
indicated and classed according to their prerogatives and relations. Nor
have we there a mere empty nomenclature, a phantom of theory; things go on
actually as they are described—the book is the reflex of the
reality. It were easy to construct, for the empire of Charlemagne, a
similar list of officers; there might be set down in it dukes, counts,
vicars, centeniers, and sheriffs (seabini), and they might be distributed,
in regular gradation, over the whole territory; but it would be one huge
lie; for most frequently, in the majority of places, these magistracies
were utterly powerless and themselves in complete disorder. The efforts of
Charlemagne, either to establish them on a firm footing or to make them
act with regularity, were continual, but unavailing. In spite of the
fixity of his purpose and the energy of his action, the disorder around
him was measureless and insurmountable. He might check it for a moment at
one point; but the evil existed wherever his terrible will did not reach,
and wherever it did the evil broke out again so soon as it had been
withdrawn. How could it be otherwise? Charlemagne had not to grapple with
one single nation or with one single system of institutions; he had to
deal with different nations, without cohesion, and foreign one to another.
The authority belonged, at one and the same time, to assemblies of free
men, to landholders over the dwellers on their domains, and to the king
over the “leudes” and their following. These three powers appeared and
acted side by side in every locality as well as in the totality of the
State. Their relations and their prerogatives were not governed by any
generally- recognized principle, and none of the three was invested with
sufficient might to prevail habitually against the independence or
resistance of its rivals. Force alone, varying according to circumstances
and always uncertain decided matters between them. Such was France at the
accession of the second line. The co-existence of and the struggle between
the three systems of institutions and the three powers just alluded to had
as yet had no other result. Out of this chaos Charlemagne caused to issue
a monarchy, strong through him alone and so long as he was by, but
powerless and gone like a shadow when the man was lost to the institution.
Whoever is astonished either at this triumph of absolute monarchy through
the personal movement of Charlemagne, or at the speedy fall of the fabric
on the disappearance of the moving spirit, understands neither what can be
done by a great man, when without him society sees itself given over to
deadly peril, nor how unsubstantial and frail is absolute power when the
great man is no longer by, or when society has no longer need of him.
It has just been shown how Charlemagne by his wars, which had for their
object and result permanent and well-secured conquests, had stopped the
fresh incursions of barbarians, that is, had stopped disorder coming from
without. An attempt will now be made to show by what means he set about
suppressing disorder from within and putting his own rule in the place of
the anarchy that prevailed in the Roman world which lay in ruins, and in
the barbaric world which was a prey to blind and ill-regulated force.
A distinction must be drawn between the local and central governments.
Far from the centre of the State, in what have since been called the
provinces, the power of the emperor was exercised by the medium of two
classes of agents, one local and permanent, the other despatched from the
centre and transitory.
In the first class we find:—
1st. The dukes, counts, vicars of counts, centeniers, sheriffs (scabini),
officers or magistrates residing on the spot, nominated by the emperor
himself or by his delegates, and charged with the duty of acting in his
name for the levying of troops, rendering of justice, maintenance of
order, and receipt of imposts.
2d. The beneficiaries or vassals of the emperor, who held of him,
sometimes as hereditaments, more often for life, and more often still
without fixed rule or stipulation, lands; domains, throughout the extent
of which they exercised, a little bit in their own name and a little bit
in the name of the emperor, a certain jurisdiction and nearly all the
rights of sovereignty. There was nothing very fixed or clear in the
position of the beneficiaries and in the nature of their power; they were
at one and the same time delegates and independent, owners and enjoyers of
usufruct, and the former or the latter character prevailed amongst them
according to circumstances. But, altogether, they were closely bound to
Charlemagne, who, in a great number of cases, charged them with the
execution of his orders in the lands they occupied.
Above these agents, local and resident, magistrates or beneficiaries, were
the missi dominici, temporary commissioners, charged to inspect, in
the emperor’s name, the condition of the provinces; authorized to
penetrate into the interior of the free lands as well as of the domains
granted with the title of benefices; having the right to reform certain
abuses, and bound to render an account of all to their master. The missi
dominici were the principal instruments Charlemagne had, throughout
the vast territory of his empire, of order and administration.
As to the central government, setting aside for a moment the personal
action of Charlemagne and of his counsellors, the general assemblies, to
judge by appearances and to believe nearly all the modern historians,
occupied a prominent place in it. They were, in fact, during his reign,
numerous and active; from the year 776 to the year 813 we may count
thirty-five of these national assemblies, March-parades and May-parades,
held at Worms, Valenciennes, Geneva, Paderborn, Aix-la-Chapelle,
Thionville, and several other towns, the majority situated round about the
two banks of the Rhine. The number and periodical nature of these great
political reunions are undoubtedly a noticeable fact. What, then, went on
in their midst? What character and weight must be attached to their
intervention in the government of the State? It is important to sift this
matter thoroughly.
There is extant, touching this subject, a very curious document. A
contemporary and counsellor of Charlemagne, his cousin-german Adalbert,
abbot of Corbic, had written a treatise entitled Of the Ordering of the
Palace (De Ordine Palatii), and designed to give an insight into the
government of Charlemagne, with especial reference to the national
assemblies. This treatise was lost; but towards the close of the ninth
century, Hincmar, the celebrated archbishop of Rheims, reproduced it
almost in its entirety, in the form of a letter or of instructions,
written at the request of certain grandees of the kingdom who had asked
counsel of him with respect to the government of Carloman, one of the sons
of Charles the Stutterer. We read therein,
“It was the custom at this time to hold two assemblies every year. . . In
both, that they might not seem to have been convoked without motive, there
were submitted to the examination and deliberation of the grandees . . .
and by virtue of orders from the king, the fragments of law called capitula,
which the king himself had drawn up under the inspiration of God or the
necessity for which had been made manifest to him in the intervals between
the meetings.”
Two striking facts are to be gathered from these words: the first, that
the majority of the members composing these assemblies probably regarded
as a burden the necessity for being present at them, since Charlemagne
took care to explain their convocation by declaring to them the motive for
it and by always giving them something to do; the second, that the
proposal of the capitularies, or, in modern phrase, the initiative,
proceeded from the emperor. The initiative is naturally exercised by him
who wishes to regulate or reform, and in his time it was especially
Charlemagne who conceived this design. There is no doubt, however, but
that the members of the assembly might make on their side such proposals
as appeared to them suitable; the constitutional distrusts and artifices
of our times were assuredly unknown to Charlemagne, who saw in these
assemblies a means of government rather than a barrier to his authority.
To resume the text of Hincmar:—
“After having received these communications, they deliberated on them two
or three days or more, according to the importance of the business.
Palace-messengers, going and coming, took their questions and carried back
the answers. No stranger came near the place of their meeting until the
result of their deliberations had been able to be submitted to the
scrutiny of the great prince, who then, with the wisdom he had received
from God, adopted a resolution which all obeyed.”
The definitive resolution, therefore, depended upon Charlemagne alone; the
assembly contributed only information and counsel.
Hinemar continues, and supplies details worthy of reproduction, for they
give an insight into the imperial government and the action of Charlemagne
himself amidst those most ancient of the national assemblies.
“Things went on thus for one or two capitularies, or a greater number,
until, with God’s help, all the necessities of the occasion were
regulated.
“Whilst these matters were thus proceeding out of the king’s presence, the
prince himself, in the midst of the multitude, came to the general
assembly, was occupied in receiving the presents, saluting the men of most
note, conversing with those he saw seldom, showing towards the elders a
tender interest, disporting himself with the youngsters, and doing the
same thing, or something like it, with the ecclesiastics as well as the
seculars. However, if those who were deliberating about the matter
submitted to their examination showed a desire for it, the king repaired
to them and remained with them as long as they wished; and then they
reported to him with perfect familiarity what they thought about all
matters, and what were the friendly discussions that had arisen amongst
them. I must not forget to say that, if the weather were fine, everything
took place in the open air; otherwise, in several distinct buildings,
where those who had to deliberate on the king’s proposals were separated
from the multitude of persons come to the assembly, and then the men of
greater note were admitted. The places appointed for the meeting of the
lords were divided into two parts, in such sort that the bishops, the
abbots, and the clerics of high rank might meet without mixture with the
laity. In the same way the counts and other chiefs of the State underwent
separation, in the morning, until, whether the king was present or absent,
all were gathered together; then the lords above specified, the clerics on
their side, and the laics on theirs, repaired to the hall which had been
assigned to them, and where seats had been with due honor prepared for
them. When the lords laical and ecclesiastical were thus separated from
the multitude, it remained in their power to sit separately or together,
according to the nature of the business they had to deal with,
ecclesiastical, secular, or mixed. In the same way, if they wished to send
for any one, either to demand refreshment, or to put any question and to
dismiss him after getting what they wanted, it was at their option. Thus
took place the examination of affairs proposed to them by the king for
deliberation.
“The second business of the king was to ask of each what there was to
report to him, or enlighten him touching the part of the kingdom each had
come from. Not only was this permitted to all, but they were strictly
enjoined to make inquiries, during the interval between the assemblies,
about what happened within or without the kingdom; and they were bound to
seek knowledge from foreigners as well as natives, enemies as well as
friends, sometimes by employing emissaries, and without troubling
themselves much about the manner in which they acquired their information.
The king wished to know whether in any part, in any corner of the kingdom,
the people were restless, and what was the cause of their restlessness; or
whether there had happened any disturbance to which it was necessary to
draw the attention of the council-general, and other similar matters. He
sought also to know whether any of the subjugated nations were inclined to
revolt; whether any of those that had revolted seemed disposed towards
submission; and whether those that were still independent were threatening
the kingdom with any attack. On all these subjects, whenever there was any
manifestation of disorder or danger, he demanded chiefly what were the
motives or occasion of them.”
There is need of no great reflection to recognize the true character of
these assemblies: it is clearly imprinted upon the sketch drawn by
Hincmar. The figure of Charlemagne alone fills the picture: he is the
centre-piece of it and the soul of everything. ‘Tis he who wills that the
national assemblies should meet and deliberate; ‘tis he who inquires into
the state of the country; ‘tis he who proposes and approves of or rejects
the laws; with him rest will and motive, initiative and decision. He has a
mind sufficiently judicious, unshackled, and elevated to understand that
the nation ought not to be left in darkness about its affairs, and that he
himself has need of communicating with it, of gathering information from
it, and of learning its opinions. But we have here no exhibition of great
political liberties, no people discussing its interests and its business,
interfering effectually in the adoption of resolutions, and, in fact,
taking in its government so active and decisive a part as to have a right
to say that it is self-governing, or, in other words, a free people. It is
Charlemagne, and he alone, who governs; it is absolute government marked
by prudence, ability, and grandeur.
When the mind dwells upon the state of Gallo-Frankish society in the
eighth century, there is nothing astonishing in such a fact. Whether it be
civilized or barbarian, that which every society needs, that which it
seeks and demands first of all in its government, is a certain degree of
good sense and strong will, of intelligence and innate influence, so far
as the public interests are concerned; qualities, in fact, which suffice
to keep social order maintained or make it realized, and to promote
respect for individual rights and the progress of the general well-being.
This is the essential aim of every community of men; and the institutions
and guarantees of free government are the means of attaining it. It is
clear that, in the eighth century, on the ruins of the Roman and beneath
the blows of the barbaric world, the Gallo-Frankish nation, vast and
without cohesion, brutish and ignorant, was incapable of bringing forth,
so to speak, from its own womb, with the aid of its own wisdom and virtue,
a government of the kind. A host of different forces, without
enlightenment and without restraint, were everywhere and incessantly
struggling for dominion, or, in other words, were ever troubling and
endangering the social condition. Let there but arise, in the midst of
this chaos of unruly forces and selfish passions, a great man, one of
those elevated minds and strong characters that can understand the
essential aim of society and then urge it forward, and at the same time
keep it well in hand on the roads that lead thereto, and such a man will
soon seize and exercise the personal power almost of a despot, and people
will not only make him welcome, but even celebrate his praises, for they
do not quit the substance for the shadow, or sacrifice the end to the
means. Such was the empire of Charlemagne. Amongst annalists and
historians, some, treating him as a mere conqueror and despot, have
ignored his merits and his glory; others, that they might admire him
without scruple, have made of him a founder of free institutions, a
constitutional monarch. Both are equally mistaken. Charlemagne was,
indeed, a conqueror and a despot; but by his conquests and his personal
power he, so long as he was by, that is, for six and forty years, saved
Gallo-Frankish society from barbaric invasion without and anarchy within.
That is the characteristic of his government and his title to glory.
What he was in his wars and his general relations with his nation has just
been seen; he shall now be exhibited in all his administrative activity
and his intellectual life, as a legislator and as a friend to the human
mind. The same man will be recognized in every ease; he will grow in
greatness, without changing, as he appears under his various aspects.
There are often joined together, under the title of Capitularies (capitula,
small chapters, articles) a mass of Acts, very different in point of dates
and objects, which are attributed indiscriminately to Charlemagne. This is
a mistake. The Capitularies are the laws or legislative measures of the
Frankish kings, Merovingian as well as Carlovingian. Those of the
Merovingians are few in number and of slight importance, and amongst those
of the Carlovingians, which amount to one hundred and fifty-two,
sixty-five only are due to Charlemagne. When an attempt is made to
classify these last according to their object, it is impossible not to be
struck with their incoherent variety; and several of them are such as we
should nowadays be surprised to meet with in a code or in a special law.
Amongst Charlemagne’s sixty-five Capitularies, which contain eleven
hundred and fifty-one articles, may be counted eighty-seven of moral, two
hundred and ninety-three of political, one hundred and thirty of penal,
one hundred and ten of civil, eighty-five of religious, three hundred and
five of canonical, seventy-three of domestic, and twelve of incidental
legislation. And it must not be supposed that all these articles are
really acts of legislation, laws properly so called; we find amongst them
the texts of ancient national laws revised and promulgated afresh;
extracts from and additions to these same ancient laws, Salle, Lombard,
and Bavarian; extracts from acts of councils; instructions given by
Charlemagne to his envoys in the provinces; questions that he proposed to
put to the bishops or counts when they came to the national assembly;
answers given by Charlemagne to questions addressed to him by the bishops,
counts, or commissioners (missi dominici); judgments, decrees,
royal pardons, and simple notes that Charlemagne seems to have had written
down for himself alone, to remind him of what he proposed to do; in a
word, nearly all the various acts which could possibly have to be framed
by an earnest, far-sighted and active government. Often, indeed, these
Capitularies have no imperative or prohibitive character; they are simple
counsels, purely moral precepts. We read therein, for example,—
“Covetousness doth consist in desiring that which others possess, and in
giving away nought of that which one’s self possesseth; according to the
Apostle it is the root of all evil.”
And,—
“Hospitality must be practised.”
The Capitularies which have been classed under the heads of political,
penal, and canonical legislation are the most numerous, and are those
which bear most decidedly an imperative or prohibitive stamp; amongst them
a prominent place is held by measures of political economy,
administration, and police; you will find therein an attempt to put a
fixed price on provisions, a real trial of a maximum for cereals, and a
prohibition of mendicity, with the following clause:—
“If such mendicants be met with, and they labor not with their hands, let
none take thought about giving unto them.”
The interior police of the palace was regulated thereby, as well as that
of the empire:
“We do will and decree that none of those who serve in our palace shall
take leave to receive therein any man who seeketh refuge there and cometh
to hide there, by reason of theft, homicide, adultery, or any other crime.
That if any free man do break through our interdicts, and hide such
malefactor in our palace, he shall be bound to carry him on his shoulders
to the public quarter, and be there tied to the same stake as the
malefactor.”
Certain Capitularies have been termed religious legislation in
contradistinction to canonical legislation, because they are really
admonitions, religious exhortations, addressed not to ecclesiastics alone,
but to the faithful, the Christian people in general, and notably
characterized by good sense, and, one might almost say, freedom of
thought.
For example,
“Beware of venerating the names of martyrs falsely so called, and the
memory of dubious saints.”
“Let none suppose that prayer cannot be made to God save in three tongues
[probably Latin, Greek, and Germanic, or perhaps the vulgar tongue; for
the last was really beginning to take form], for God is adored in all
tongues, and man is heard if he do but ask for the things that be right.”
These details are put forward that a proper idea may be obtained of
Charlemagne as a legislator, and of what are called his laws. We have
here, it will be seen, no ordinary legislator and no ordinary laws: we see
the work, with infinite variations and in disconnected form, of a
prodigiously energetic and watchful master, who had to think and provide
for everything, who had to be everywhere the moving and the regulating
spirit. This universal and untiring energy is the grand characteristic of
Charlemagne’s government, and was, perhaps, what made his superiority most
incontestable and his power most efficient.
It is noticeable that the majority of Charlemagne’s Capitularies belong to
that epoch of his reign when he was Emperor of the West, when he was
invested with all the splendor of sovereign power. Of the sixty-five
Capitularies classed under different heads, thirteen only are previous to
the 25th of December, 800, the date of his coronation as emperor at Rome;
fifty-two are comprised between the years 801 and 804.
The energy of Charlemagne as a warrior and a politician having thus been
exhibited, it remains to say a few words about his intellectual energy.
For that is by no means the least original or least grand feature of his
character and his influence.
Modern times and civilized society have more than once seen despotic
sovereigns filled with distrust towards scholars of exalted intellect,
especially such as cultivated the moral and political sciences, and little
inclined to admit them to their favor or to public office. There is no
knowing whether, in our days, with our freedom of thought and of the
press, Charlemagne would have been a stranger to this feeling of
antipathy; but what is certain is, that in his day, in the midst of a
barbaric society, there was no inducement to it, and that, by nature, he
was not disposed to it. His power was not in any respect questioned;
distinguished intellects were very rare; Charlemagne had too much need of
their services to fear their criticisms, and they, on their part, were
more anxious to second his efforts than to show towards him anything like
exaction or independence. He gave rein, therefore, without any
embarrassment or misgiving, to his spontaneous inclination towards them,
their studies, their labors, and their influence. He drew them into the
management of affairs. In Guizot’s History of Civilization in France
there is a list of the names and works of twenty-three men of the eighth
and ninth centuries who have escaped oblivion, and they are all found
grouped about Charlemagne as his own habitual advisers, or assigned by him
as advisers to his sons Pepin and Louis in Italy and Aquitania, or sent by
him to all points of his empire as his commissioners (missi dominici),
or charged in his name with important negotiations. And those whom he did
not employ at a distance formed, in his immediate neighborhood, a learned
and industrious society, a school of the palace, according to some modern
commentators, but an academy, and not a school, according to others,
devoted rather to conversation than to teaching. It probably fulfilled
both missions; it attended Charlemagne at his various residences, at one
time working for him at questions he invited them to deal with, at another
giving to the regular components of his court, to his children and to
himself, lessons in the different sciences called liberal, grammar,
rhetoric, logic, astronomy, geometry, and even theology and the great
religious problems it was beginning to discuss.
Two men, Alcuin and Eginhard, have remained justly celebrated in the
literary history of the age. Alcuin was the principal director of the
school of the palace, and the favorite, the confidant, the learned adviser
of Charlemagne. “If your zeal were imitated,” said he one day to the
emperor, “perchance one might see arise in France a new Athens, far more
glorious than the ancient—the Athens of Christ.” Eginhard, who was
younger, received his scientific education in the school of the palace,
and was head of the public works to Charlemagne, before becoming his
biographer, and, at a later period, the intimate adviser of his son Louis
the Debonnair. Other scholars of the school of the palace, Angilbert,
Leidrade, Adalhard, Agobard, Theodulph, were abbots of St. Riquier or
Corbie, archbishops of Lyons, and bishops of Orleans. They had all
assumed, in the school itself, names illustrious in pagan antiquity;
Alcuin called himself Flaeens; Angilbert, Homer; Theodulph, Pindar.
Charlemagne himself had been pleased to take, in their society, a great
name of old, but he had borrowed from the history of the Hebrews—he
called himself David; and Eginhard, animated, no doubt, by the same
sentiments, was Bezaleel, that nephew of Moses to whom God had granted the
gift of knowing how to work skilfully in wood and all the materials which
served for the construction of the ark and the tabernacle. Either in the
lifetime of their royal patron, or after his death, all these scholars
became great dignitaries of the Church, or ended their lives in
monasteries of note; but, so long as they lived, they served Charlemagne
or his sons not only with the devotion of faithful advisers, but also as
followers proud of the master who had known how to do them honor by making
use of them.
It was without effort and by natural sympathy that Charlemagne had
inspired them with such sentiments; for he, too, really loved sciences,
literature, and such studies as were then possible, and he cultivated them
on his own account and for his own pleasure, as a sort of conquest. It has
been doubted whether he could write, and an expression of Eginhard’s might
authorize such a doubt; but, according to other evidence and even
according to the passage in Eginhard, one is inclined to believe merely
that Charlemagne strove painfully, and without much success, to write a
good hand. He had learned Latin, and he understood Greek. He caused to be
commenced, and, perhaps, himself commenced the drawing up of the first
Germanic grammar. He ordered that the old barbaric poems, in which the
deeds and wars of the ancient kings were celebrated, should be collected
for posterity. He gave Germanic names to the twelve months of the year. He
distinguished the winds by twelve special terms, whereas before his time
they had but four designations. He paid great attention to astronomy.
Being troubled one day at no longer seeing in the firmament one of the
known planets, he wrote to Alcuin, “What thinkest thou of this Mars,
which, last year, being concealed in the sign of Cancer, was intercepted
from the sight of men by the light of the sun? Is it the regular course of
his revolution? Is it the influence of the sun? Is it a miracle? Could he
have been two years about performing the course of a single one?” In
theological studies and discussions he exhibited a particular and grave
interest. “It is to him,” say M.M. Ampere and Haureau, “that we must refer
the honor of the decision taken in 794 by the Council of Frankfort in the
great dispute about images; a temperate decision which is as far removed
from the infatuation of the image-worshippers as from the frenzy of the
image-breakers.” And at the same time that he thus took part in the great
ecclesiastical questions, Charlemagne paid zealous attention to the
instruction of the clergy, whose ignorance he deplored. “Ah,” said he one
day, “if only I had about me a dozen clerics learned in all the sciences,
as Jerome and Augustin were!” With all his puissance it was not in his
power to make Jeromes and Augustins; but he laid the foundation, in the
cathedral churches and the great monasteries, of episcopal and cloistral
schools for the education of ecclesiastics, and carrying his solicitude
still farther, he recommended to the bishops and abbots that, in those
schools, “they should take care to make no difference between the sons of
serfs and of free men, so that they might come and sit on the same benches
to study grammar, music, and arithmetic.” (Capitularies of 789,
art. 70.) Thus, in the eighth century, he foreshadowed the extension
which, in the nineteenth, was to be accorded to primary instruction, to
the advantage and honor not only of the clergy, but also of the whole
people.
After so much of war and toil at a distance, Charlemagne was now at Aix-
la-Chapelle, finding rest in this work of peaceful civilization. He was
embellishing the capital which he had founded, and which was called the
king’s court. He had built there a grand basilica, magnificently adorned.
He was completing his own palace there. He fetched from Italy clerics
skilled in church music, a pious joyance to which he was much devoted, and
which he recommended to the bishops of his empire. In the outskirts of
Aix-la-Chapelle “he gave full scope,” said Eginhard, “to his delight in
riding and hunting. Baths of naturally-tepid water gave him great
pleasure. Being passionately fond of swimming, he became so dexterous that
none could be compared with him. He invited not only his sons, but also
his friends, the grandees of his court, and sometimes even the soldiers of
his guard, to bathe with him, insomuch that there were often a hundred and
more persons bathing at a time. When age arrived he made no alteration in
his bodily habits; but, at the same time, instead of putting away from him
the thought of death, he was much taken up with it, and prepared himself
for it with stern severity. He drew up, modified, and completed his will
several times over. Three years before his death he made out the
distribution of his treasures, his money, his wardrobe, and all his
furniture, in the presence of his friends and his officers, in order that
their voice might insure, after his death, the execution of this
partition, and he set down his intentions in this respect in a written
summary, in which he massed all his riches in three grand lots. The first
two were divided into twenty-one portions, which were to be distributed
amongst the twenty-one metropolitan churches of his empire. After having
put these first two lots under seal, he willed to preserve to himself his
usual enjoyment of the third so long as he lived. But after his death or
voluntary renunciation of the things of this world, this same lot was to
be subdivided into four portions. His intention was, that the first should
be added to the twenty-one portions which were to go to the metropolitan
churches; the second set aside for his sons and daughters, and for the
sons and daughters of his sons, and redivided amongst them in a just and
proportionate manner; the third dedicated, according to the usage of
Christians, to the necessities of the poor; and, lastly, the fourth
distributed in the same way, under the name of alms, amongst the servants,
of both sexes, of the palace for their lifetime. . . . As for the books,
of which he had amassed a large number in his library, he decided that
those who wished to have them might buy them at their proper value, and
that the money which they produced should be distributed amongst the
poor.”
Having thus carefully regulated his own private affairs and bounty, he,
two years later, in 813, took the measures necessary for the regulation,
after his death, of public affairs. He had lost, in 811, his eldest son
Charles, who had been his constant companion in his wars, and, in 810, his
second son Pepin, whom he had made king of Italy; and he summoned to his
side his third son Louis, king of Aquitaine, who was destined to succeed
him. He ordered the convocation of five local councils which were to
assemble at Mayence, Rheims, Chalons, Tours, and Arles, for the purpose of
bringing about, subject to the king’s ratification, the reforms necessary
in the Church. Passing from the affairs of the Church to those of the
State, he convoked at Aix-la-Chapelle a general assembly of bishops,
abbots, counts, laic grandees, and of the entire people, and, holding
council in his palace with the chief amongst them, “he invited them to
make his son Louis king-emperor; whereto all assented, saying that it was
very expedient, and pleasing, also, to the people. On Sunday in the next
month, August 813, Charlemagne repaired, crown on head, with his son
Louis, to the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, laid upon the altar another
crown, and, after praying, addressed to his son a solemn exhortation
respecting all his duties as king towards God and the Church, towards his
family and his people, asked him if he were fully resolved to fulfil them,
and, at the answer that he was, bade him take the crown that lay upon the
altar, and place it with his own hands upon his head, which Louis did
amidst the acclamations of all present, who cried, ‘Long live the emperor
Louis!’ Charlemagne then declared his son emperor jointly with him, and
ended the solemnity with these words: ‘Blessed be Thou, O Lord God, who
hast granted me grace to see with mine own eyes my son seated on my
throne!’” And Louis set out again immediately for Aquitaine.
He was never to see his father again. Charlemagne, after his son’s
departure, went out hunting, according to his custom, in the forest of
Ardenne, and continued during the whole autumn his usual mode of life.
“But in January, 814, he was taken ill,” says Eginhard, “of a violent
fever, which kept him to his bed. Recurring forthwith to the remedy he
ordinarily employed against fever, he abstained from all nourishment,
persuaded that this diet would suffice to drive away or at the least
assuage the malady; but added to the fever came that pain in the side
which the Greeks call pleurisy; nevertheless the emperor persisted in his
abstinence, supporting his body only by drinks taken at long intervals;
and on the seventh day after that he had taken to his bed, having received
the holy communion,” he expired about nine A.M., on Saturday, the 28th of
January, 814, in his seventy-first year.
“After performance of ablutions and funeral duties, the corpse was carried
away and buried, amidst the profound mourning of all the people, in the
church he himself had built; and above his tomb there was put up a gilded
arcade with his image and this superscription: ‘In this tomb reposeth the
body of Charles, great and orthodox emperor, who did gloriously extend the
kingdom of the Franks, and did govern it happily for forty-seven years. He
died at the age of seventy years, in the year of the Lord 814, in the
seventh year of the Indiction, on the 5th of the Kalends of February.’”
If we sum up his designs and his achievements, we find an admirably sound
idea and a vain dream, a great success and a great failure.
Charlemagne took in hand the work of placing upon a solid foundation the
Frankish-Christian dominion by stopping, in the north and south, the flood
of barbarians and Arabs—Paganism and Islamism. In that he succeeded:
the inundations of Asiatic populations spent their force in vain against
the Gallic frontier. Western and Christian Europe was placed,
territorially, beyond reach of attacks from the foreigner and infidel. No
sovereign, no human being, perhaps, ever rendered greater service to the
civilization of the world.
Charlemagne formed another conception and made another attempt. Like more
than one great barbaric warrior, he admired the Roman empire that had
fallen, its vastness all in one, and its powerful organization under the
hand of a single master. He thought he could resuscitate it, durably,
through the victory of a new people and a new faith, by the hand of Franks
and Christians. With this view he labored to conquer, convert, and govern.
He tried to be, at one and the same time, Caesar, Augustus, and
Constantine. And for a moment he appeared to have succeeded; but the
appearance passed away with himself. The unity of the empire and the
absolute power of the emperor were buried in his grave. The Christian
religion and human liberty set to work to prepare for Europe other
governments and other destinies.
Great men do great things which would not get done without them; they set
their mark plainly upon history, which realizes a portion of their ideas
and wishes; but they are far from doing all they meditate, and they know
not all they do. They are at one and the same time instruments and free
agents in a general design which is infinitely above their ken, and which,
even if a glimpse of it be caught, remains inscrutable to them— the
design of God towards mankind. When great men understand that such is
their position and accept it, they show sense, and they work to some
purpose. When they do not recognize the limits of their free agency, and
the veil which hides from their eyes the future they are laboring for,
they become the dupes, and frequently the victims, of a blind pride, which
events, in the long run, always end by exposing and punishing.
Amongst men of his rank, Charlemagne has had this singular good fortune,
that his error, his misguided attempt at imperialism, perished with him,
whilst his salutary achievement, the territorial security of Christian
Europe, has been durable, to the great honor, as well as great profit, of
European civilization.
CHAPTER XII.
DECAY AND FALL OF THE CARLOVINGIANS.
From the death of Charlemagne to the accession of Hugh Capet,—that
is, from 814 to 987,—thirteen kings sat upon the throne of France.
What then became, under their reign and in the course of those hundred and
seventy-three years, of the two great facts which swayed the mind and
occupied the life of Charlemagne? What became, that is, of the solid
territorial foundation of the kingdom of Christian France, through
efficient repression of foreign invasion, and of the unity of that vast
empire wherein Charlemagne had attempted and hoped to resuscitate the
Roman empire?
The fate of those two facts is the very history of France under the
Carlovingian dynasty; it is the only portion of the events of that epoch
which still deserves attention nowadays, for it is the only one which has
exercised any great and lasting influence on the general history of
France.
Attempts at foreign invasion of France were renewed very often, and in
many parts of Gallo-Frankish territory, during the whole duration of the
Carlovingian dynasty, and, even though they failed, they caused the
population of the kingdom to suffer from cruel ravages. Charlemagne, even
after his successes against the different barbaric invaders, had foreseen
the evils which would be inflicted on France by the most formidable and
most determined of them, the Northmen, coming by sea, and landing on the
coast. The most closely contemporaneous and most given to detail of his
chroniclers, the monk of St. Gall, tells in prolix and pompous, but
evidently heartfelt and sincere terms, the tale of the great emperor’s
far-sightedness. “Charles, who was ever astir,” says he, “arrived by mere
hap and unexpectedly, in a certain town of Narbonnese Gaul. Whilst he was
at dinner, and was as yet unrecognized of any, some corsairs of the
Northmen came to ply their piracies in the very port. When their vessels
were descried, they were supposed to be Jewish traders according to some,
African according to others, and British in the opinion of others; but the
gifted monarch, perceiving, by the build and lightness of the craft, that
they bare not merchandise, but foes, said to his own folk, ‘These vessels
be not laden with merchandise, but manned with cruel foes.’ At these words
all the Franks, in rivalry one with another, run to their ships, but
uselessly: for the Northmen, indeed, hearing that yonder was he whom it
was still their wont to call Charles the Hammer, feared lest all their
fleet should be taken or destroyed in the port, and they avoided, by a
flight of inconceivable rapidity, not only the glaives, but even the eyes
of those who were pursuing then.
“Pious Charles, however, a prey to well-grounded fear, rose up from table,
stationed himself at a window looking eastward, and there remained a long
while, and his eyes were filled with tears. As none durst question him,
this warlike prince explained to the grandees who were about his person
the cause of his movement and of his tears: ‘Know ye, my lieges, wherefore
I weep so bitterly? Of a surety I fear not lest these fellows should
succeed in injuring me by their miserable piracies; but it grieveth me
deeply that, whilst I live, they should have been nigh to touching at this
shore, and I am a prey to violent sorrow when I foresee what evils they
will heap upon my descendants and their people.’”
The forecast and the dejection of Charles were not unreasonable. It will
be found that there is special mention made, in the chronicles of the
ninth and tenth centuries, of forty-seven incursions into France of
Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Irish pirates, all comprised under the
name of Northmen; and, doubtless, many other incursions of less gravity
have left no trace in history. “The Northmen,” says M. Fauriel, “descended
from the north to the south by a sort of natural gradation or ladder. The
Scheldt was the first river by the mouth of which they penetrated inland;
the Seine was the second; the Loire the third. The advance was threatening
for the countries traversed by the Garonne; and it was in 844 that vessels
freighted with Northmen for the first time ascended this last river to a
considerable distance inland, and there took immense booty. . . . The
following year they pillaged and burnt Saintes. In 846 they got as far as
Limoges. The inhabitants, finding themselves unable to make head against
the dauntless pirates, abandoned their hearths, together with all they had
not time to carry away. Encouraged by these successes, the Northmen
reappeared next year upon the coasts and in the rivers of Aquitaine, and
they attempted to take Bordeaux, whence they were valorously repulsed by
the inhabitants; but in 848, having once more laid siege to that city,
they were admitted into it at night by the Jews, who were there in great
force; the city was given up to plunder and conflagration; a portion of
the people was scattered abroad, and the rest put to the sword.” Tours,
Rouen, Angers, Orleans, Meaux, Toulouse, Saint-Lo, Bayeux, Evreux, Nantes,
and Beauvais, some of them more than once, met the fate of Saintes,
Limoges, and Bordeaux. The monasteries and churches, wherein they hoped to
find treasures, were the favorite objects of the Nortlimen’s enterprises;
in particular, they plundered, at the gates of Paris, the abbey of St.
Germain des Pres and that of St. Denis, whence they carried off the abbot,
who could not purchase his freedom, save by a heavy ransom. They
penetrated more than once into Paris itself, and subjected many of its
quarters to contributions or pillage. The populations grew into the habit
of suffering and fleeing; and the local lords, and even the kings, made
arrangement sometimes with the pirates either for saving the royal domains
from the ravages, or for having their own share therein. In 850, Pepin,
king of Aquitaine, and brother of Charles the Bald, came to an
understanding with the Northmen who had ascended the Garonne, and were
threatening Toulouse. “They arrived under his guidance,” says M. Fauriel,
“they laid siege to it, took it and plundered it, not halfwise, not
hastily, as folks who feared to be surprised, but leisurely, with all
security, by virtue of a treaty of alliance with one of the kings of the
country.” Throughout Aquitaine there was but one cry of indignation
against Pepin, and the popularity of Charles was increased in proportion
to all the horror inspired by the ineffable misdeed of his adversary.
Charles the Bald himself, if he did not ally himself, as Pepin did, with
the invaders, took scarce any interest in the fate of the populations, and
scarcely more trouble to protect them, for Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims,
wrote to him in 859, “Many folks say that you are incessantly repeating
that it is not for you to mix yourself up with these depredations and
robberies, and that every one has but to defend himself as best he may.”
It were tedious to relate or even to enumerate all these incursions of the
Northmen, with their monotonous incidents. When their frequency and their
general character have been notified, all has been done that is due to
them from history. However, there are three on which it may be worth while
to dwell particularly, by reason of their grave historical consequences,
as well as of the dramatic details which have been transmitted to us about
them.
In the middle and during the last half of the ninth century, a chief of
the Northmen, named Hastenc or Hastings, appeared several times over on
the coasts and in the rivers of France, with numerous vessels and a
following. He had also with him, say the chronicles, a young Norwegian or
Danish prince, Bieern, called Ironsides, whom he had educated, and who had
preferred sharing the fortunes of his governor to living quietly with the
king, his father. After several expeditions into Western France, Hastings
became the theme of terrible, and very probably fabulous stories. He
extended his cruises, they say, to the Mediterranean, and, having arrived
at the coasts of Tuscany, within sight of a city which in his ignorance he
took for Rome, he resolved to pillage it; but, not feeling strong enough
to attack it by assault, he sent to the bishop to say he was very ill,
felt a wish to become a Christian, and begged to be baptized. Some days
afterwards, his comrades spread a report that he was dead, and claimed for
him the honors of a solemn burial. The bishop consented; the coffin of
Hastings was carried into the church, attended by a large number of his
followers, without visible weapons; but, in the middle of the ceremony,
Hastings suddenly leaped up, sword in hand, from his coffin; his followers
displayed the weapons they had concealed, closed the doors, slew the
priests, pillaged the ecclesiastical treasures, and re-embarked before the
very eyes of the stupefied population, to go and resume, on the coasts of
France, their incursions and their ravages.
Whether they were true or false, these rumors of bold artifices and
distant expeditions on the part of Hastings aggravated the dismay inspired
by his appearance. He penetrated into the interior of the country in
Poitou, Anjou, Brittany, and along the Seine; pillaged the monasteries of
Jumieges, St. Vaudrille, and St. Evroul; took possession of Chartres, and
appeared before Paris, where Charles the Bald, intrenched at St. Denis,
was deliberating with his prelates and barons as to how he might resist
the Northmen or treat with them. The chronicle says that the barons
advised resistance, but that the king preferred negotiation, and “sent the
Abbot of St. Denis, the which was an exceeding wise man,” to Hastings,
who, “after long parley, and by reason of large gifts and promises,”
consented to stop his cruisings, to become a Christian, and to settle in
the count-ship of Chartres, “which the king gave him as an hereditary
possession, with all its appurtenances.” According to other accounts, it
was only some years later, under the young king Louis III., grandson of
Charles the Bald, that Hastings was induced, either by reverses or by
payment of money, to cease from his piracies, and accept in recompense the
countship of Chartres. Whatever may have been the date, he was, it is
believed, the first chieftain of the Northmen who renounced a life of
adventure and plunder, to become, in France, a great landed proprietor and
a count of the king’s. Prince Bieern then separated from his governor, and
put again to sea, “laden with so rich a booty that he could never feel any
want of wealth; but a tempest swallowed up a great part of his fleet, and
cast him upon the coasts of Friesland, where he died soon after, for which
Hastings was exceeding sorry.”
A greater chieftain of the Northmen than Hastings was soon to follow his
example, and found Normandy in France; but before Rolf, that is, Rollo,
came and gave the name of his race to a French province, the piratical.
Northmen were again to attempt a greater blow against France, and to
suffer a great reverse.
In November, 885, under the reign of Charles the Fat, after having, for
more than forty years, irregularly ravaged France, they resolved to unite
their forces in order at length to obtain possession of Paris, whose
outskirts they had so often pillaged without having been able to enter the
heart of the place, in the Ile de la Cite, which had originally been and
still was the real Paris. Two bodies of troops were set in motion; one,
under the command of Rollo, who was already famous amongst his comrades,
marched on Rouen; the other went right up the course of the Seine, under
the orders of Siegfried, whom the Northmen called their king. Rollo took
Rouen, and pushed on at once for Paris. Duke Renaud, general of the
Gallo-Frankish troops, went to encounter him on the banks of the Eure, and
sent to him, to sound his intentions, Hastings, the newly-made count of
Chartres. “Valiant warriors,” said Hastings to Rollo, “whence come ye?
What seek ye here? What is the name of your lord and master? Tell us this;
for we be sent unto you by the king of the Franks.” “We be Danes,”
answered Rollo, “and all be equally masters amongst us. We be come to
drive out the inhabitants of this land, and to subject it as our own
country. But who art thou, thou who speakest so glibly?” “Ye have sometime
heard tell of one Hastings, who, issuing forth from amongst you, came
hither with much shipping and made desert a great part of the kingdom of
the Franks?” “Yes,” said Rollo, “we have heard tell of him; Hastings began
well and ended ill.” “Will ye yield you to King Charles?” asked Hastings.
“We yield,” was the answer, “to none; all that we shall take by our arms
we will keep as our right. Go and tell this, if thou wilt, to the king,
whose envoy thou boastest to be.” Hastings returned to the Gallo-Frankish
army, and Rollo prepared to march on Paris. Hastings had gone back
somewhat troubled in mind. Now there was amongst the Franks one Count
Tetbold (Thibault), who greatly coveted the countship of Chartres, and he
said to Hastings, “Why slumberest thou softly? Knowest thou not that King
Charles doth purpose thy death by cause of all the Christian blood that
thou didst aforetime unjustly shed? Bethink thee of all the evil thou hast
done him, by reason whereof he purposeth to drive thee from his land. Take
heed to thyself that thou be not smitten unawares.” Hastings, dismayed, at
once sold to Tetbold the town of Chartres, and, removing all that belonged
to him, departed to go and resume, for all that appears, his old course of
life.
On the 25th of November, 885, all the forces of the North-men formed a
junction before Paris; seven hundred huge barks covered two leagues of the
Seine, bringing, it is said, more than thirty thousand men. The chieftains
were astonished at sight of the new fortifications of the city, a double
wall of circumvallation, the bridges crowned with towers, and in the
environs the ramparts of the abbeys of St. Denis and St. Germain solidly
rebuilt. Siegfried hesitated to attack a town so well defended. He
demanded to enter alone and have an interview with the bishop, Gozlin.
“Take pity on thyself and thy flock,” said he to him; “let us but pass
through this city; we will in no wise touch the town; we will do our best
to preserve for thee and Count Eudes, all your possessions.” “This city,”
replied the bishop, “hath been confided unto us by the Emperor Charles,
king and ruler, under God, of the powers of the earth. He hath confided it
unto us not that it should cause the ruin but the salvation of the
kingdom. If peradventure these walls had been confided to thy keeping, as
they have been to mine, wouldst thou do as thou biddest me?” “If ever I do
so,” answered Siegfried, “may my head be condemned to fall by the sword
and serve as food to the dogs! But if thou yield not to our prayers, so
soon as the sun shall commence his course, our armies will launch upon
thee their poisoned arrows; and when the sun shall end his course, they
will give thee over to all the horrors of famine; and this will they do
from year to year.” The bishop, however, persisted, without further
discussion; being as certain of Count Eudes as he was of himself. Eudes,
who was young and but recently made count of Paris, was the eldest son of
Robert the Strong, count of Anjou, of the same line as Charlemagne, and
but lately slain in battle against the Northmen. Paris had for defenders
two heroes, one of the Church and the other of the Empire: the faith of
the Christian and the fealty of the vassal; the conscientiousness of the
priest and the honor of the warrior.
The siege lasted thirteen months, whiles pushed vigorously forward with
eight several assaults, whiles maintained by close investment, and with
all the alternations of success and reverse, all the intermixture of
brilliant daring and obscure sufferings, that can occur when the
assailants are determined and the defenders devoted. Not only a
contemporary but an eye-witness, Abbo, a monk of St. Germain des Pres, has
recounted the details in a long poem, wherein the writer, devoid of
talent, adds nothing to the simple representation of events; it is history
itself which gives to Abbo’s poem a high degree of interest. We do not
possess, in reference to these continual struggles of the Northmen with
the Gallo-Frankish populations, any other document which is equally
precise and complete, or which could make us so well acquainted with all
the incidents, all the phases of this irregular warfare between two
peoples, one without a government, the other without a country. The
bishop, Gozlin, died during the siege. Count Eudes quitted Paris for a
time to go and beg aid of the emperor; but the Parisians soon saw him
reappear on the heights of Montmartre with three battalions of troops, and
he re-entered the town, spurring on his horse and striking light and left
with his battle-axe through the ranks of the dumfounded besiegers. The
struggle was prolonged throughout the summer; and when, in November, 886,
Charles the Fat at last appeared before Paris, “with a large army of all
nations,” it was to purchase the retreat of the Northmen at the cost of a
heavy ransom, and by allowing them to go and winter in Burgundy, “whereof
the inhabitants obeyed not the emperor.”
Some months afterwards, in 887, Charles the Fat was deposed, at a diet
held on the banks of the Rhine, by the grandees of Germanic France; and
Arnulf, a natural son of Carloman, the brother of Louis III., was
proclaimed emperor in his stead. At the same time Count Eudes, the gallant
defender of Paris, was elected king at Compiegne and crowned by the
Archbishop of Sens. Guy, duke of Spoleto, descended from Charlemagne in
the female line, hastened to France and was declared king at Langres by
the bishop of that town, but returned with precipitation to Italy, seeing
no chance of maintaining himself in his French kingship. Elsewhere, Boso,
duke of Arles, became king of Provence, and the Burgundian Count Rodolph
had himself crowned at St. Maurice, in the Valais, king of transjuran
Burgundy. There was still in France a legitimate Carlovingian, a son of
Louis the Stutterer, who was hereafter to become Charles the Simple; but
being only a child, he had been rejected or completely forgotten, and, in
the interval that was to elapse ere his time should arrive, kings were
being made in all directions.
In the midst of this confusion, the Northmen, though they kept at a
distance from Paris, pursued in Western France their cruising and
plundering. In Rollo they had a chieftain far superior to his vagabond
predecessors. Though he still led the same life that they had, he
displayed therein other faculties, other inclinations, other views. In his
youth he had made an expedition to England, and had there contracted a
real friendship with the wise King Alfred the Great. During a campaign in
Friesland he had taken prisoner Rainier, count of Hainault; and Alberade,
countess of Brabant, made a request to Rollo for her husband’s release,
offering in return to set free twelve captains of the Northmen, her
prisoners, and to give up all the gold she possessed. Rollo took only half
the gold, and restored to the countess her husband. When, in 885, he
became master of Rouen, instead of devastating the city, after the fashion
of his kind, he respected the buildings, had the walls repaired, and
humored the inhabitants. In spite of his violent and extortionate
practices where he met with obstinate resistance, there were to be
discerned in him symptoms of more noble sentiments and of an instinctive
leaning towards order, civilization, and government. After the deposition
of Charles the Fat and during the reign of Eudes, a lively struggle was
maintained between the Frankish king and the chieftain of the Northmen,
who had neither of them forgotten their early encounters. They strove, one
against the other, with varied fortunes; Eudes succeeded in beating the
Northmen at Montfaucon, but was beaten in Vermandois by another band,
commanded, it is said, by the veteran Hastings, sometime count of
Chartres. Rollo, too, had his share at one time of success, at another of
reverse; but he made himself master of several important towns, showed a
disposition to treat the quiet populations gently, and made a fresh trip
to England, during which he renewed friendly relations with her king,
Athelstan, the successor of Alfred the Great. He thus became, from day to
day, more reputable as well as more formidable in France, insomuch that
Eudes himself was obliged to have recourse, in dealing with him, to
negotiations and presents. When, in 898, Eudes was dead, and Charles the
Simple, at hardly nineteen years of age, had been recognized sole king of
France, the ascendency of Rollo became such that the necessity of treating
with him was clear. In 911, Charles, by the advice of his councillors,
and, amongst them, of Robert, brother of the late king, Eudes, who had
himself become count of Paris and duke of France, sent to the chieftain of
the Northmen Franco, archbishop of Rouen, with orders to offer him the
cession of a considerable portion of Neustria and the hand of his young
daughter Giscle, on condition that he became a Christian and acknowledged
himself the king’s vassal. Rollo, by the advice of his comrades, received
these overtures with a good grace, and agreed to a truce for three months,
during which they might treat about peace. On the day fixed, Charles
accompanied by Duke Robert, and Rollo, surrounded by his warriors,
repaired to St. Clair-sur-Epte, on the opposite banks of the river, and
exchanged numerous messages. Charles offered Rollo Flanders, which the
Northman refused, considering it too swampy; as to the maritime portion of
Neustria, he would not be contented with it; it was, he said, covered with
forests, and had become quite a stranger to the plough-share by reason of
the Northmen’s incessant incursions; he demanded the addition of
territories taken from Brittany, and that the princes of that province,
Berenger and Alan, lords, respectively, of Redon and Del, should take the
oath of fidelity to him. When matters had been arranged on this basis,
“the bishops told Rollo that he who received such a gift as the duchy of
Normandy was bound to kiss the king’s foot. ‘Never,’ quoth Rollo, ‘will I
bend the knee before the knees of any, and I will kiss the foot of none.’
At the solicitation of the Franks he then ordered one of his warriors to
kiss the king’s foot. The Northman, remaining bolt upright, took hold of
the king’s foot, raised it to his mouth, and so made the king fall
backward, which caused great bursts of laughter and much disturbance
amongst the throng. Then the king and all the grandees who were about him,
prelates, abbots, dukes, and counts, swore, in the name of the Catholic
faith, that they would protect the patrician Rollo in his life, his
members, and his folk, and would guarantee to him the possession of the
aforesaid land, to him and his descendants forever. After which the king,
well satisfied, returned to his domains; and Rollo departed with Duke
Robert for the town of Rouen.”
The dignity of Charles the Simple had no reason to be well satisfied; but
the great political question which, a century before, caused Charlemagne
such lively anxiety, was solved; the most dangerous, the most incessantly
renewed of all foreign invasions, those of the Northmen, ceased to
threaten France. The vagabond pirates had a country to cultivate and
defend; the Northmen were becoming French.
No such transformation was near taking place in the case of the invasions
of the Saracens in Southern Gaul; they continued to infest Aquitania,
Septimania, and Provence; their robber-hordes appeared frequently on the
coasts of the Mediterranean and the banks of the Rhone, at Aigues-Mortes,
at Marseilles, at Arles, and in Camargue; they sometimes penetrated into
Dauphine, Rouergue, Limousin, and Saintonge. The author of this history
saw, at the commencement of the present century, in the mountains of the
Cevennes, the ruins of the towers built, a thousand years ago, by the
inhabitants of those rugged countries, to put their families and their
flocks under shelter from the incursions of the Saracens. But these
incursions were of short duration, and most frequently undertaken by
plunderers few in number, who retreated precipitately with their booty.
Africa was not, as Asia was, an inexhaustible source of nations burning to
push onward, one upon another, to go wandering and settling elsewhere. The
people of the north move willingly towards the south, where living is
easier and pleasanter; but the people of the south are not much disposed
to migrate to the north, with its soil so hard to cultivate, and its
leaden skies, and into the midst of its fogs and frosts. After a course of
plundering in Aquitania or in Provence, the Arabs of Spain and of Africa
were eager to recross the Pyrenees or the Mediterranean, and regain their
own lovely climate, and their life of easefulness that never palled.
Furthermore, between Christians and Mussulmans the religious antipathy was
profound. The Christian missionaries were not much given to carrying their
pious zeal into the home of the Mussulman; and the Mussulmans were far
less disposed than the pagans to become Christians. To preserve their
conquests, the Arabs of Spain had to struggle against the refugee Goths in
the Asturias; and Charlemagne, by extending those of the Franks to the
Ebro, had given the Christian Goths a powerful alliance against the
Spanish Mussulmans. For all these reasons, the invasions of the Saracens
in the south of France did not threaten, as those of the Northmen did in
the north, the security of the Gallo-Frankish monarchy, and the
Gallo-Roman populations of the south were able to defend their national
independence at the same time against the Saracens and the Franks. They
did so successfully in the ninth and tenth centuries; and the French
monarchy, which was being founded between the Loire and the Rhine, had
thus for some time a breach in it, without ever suffering serious
displacement.
A new people, the Hungarians, which was the only name then given to the
Magyars, appeared at this epoch, for the first time, amongst the
devastators of Western Europe. From 910 to 954, as a consequence of
movements and wars on the Danube, Hungarian hordes, after scouring Central
Germany, penetrated into Alsace, Lorraine, Champagne, Burgundy, Berry,
Dauphine, Provence, and even Aquitaine; but this inundation was
transitory, and if the populations of those countries had much to suffer
from it, the Gallo-Frankish dominion, in spite of inward disorder and the
feebleness of the latter Carlovingians, was not seriously endangered
thereby.
And so the first of Charlemagne’s grand designs, the territorial security
of the Gallo-Frankish and Christian dominion, was accomplished. In the
east and the north, the Germanic and Asiatic populations, which had so
long upset it, were partly arrested at its frontiers, partly incorporated
regularly in its midst. In the south, the Mussulman populations which, in
the eighth century, had appeared so near overwhelming it, were powerless
to deal it any heavy blow. Substantially France was founded. But what had
become of Charlemagne’s second grand design, the resuscitation of the
Roman empire at the hands of the barbarians that had conquered it and
become Christians?
Let us leave Louis the Debonnair his traditional name, although it is not
an exact rendering of that which was given him by his contemporaries. They
called him Louis the Pious. And so indeed he was, sincerely and even
scrupulously pious; but he was still more weak than pious, as weak in
heart and character as in mind, as destitute of ruling ideas as of
strength of will; fluctuating at the mercy of transitory impressions, or
surrounding influences, or positional embarrassments. The name of
Debonnair is suited to him; it expresses his moral worth and his political
incapacity, both at once.
As king of Aquitania, in the time of Charlemagne, Louis made himself
esteemed and loved; his justice, his suavity, his probity, and his piety
were pleasing to the people, and his weaknesses disappeared under the
strong hand of his father. When he became emperor, he began his reign by a
reaction against the excesses, real or supposed, of the preceding reign.
Charlemagne’s morals were far from regular, and he troubled himself but
little about the license prevailing in his family or his palace. At a
distance he ruled with a tight and a heavy hand. Louis established at his
court, for his sisters as well as his servants, austere regulations. He
restored to the subjugated Saxons certain of the rights of which
Charlemagne had deprived them. He sent out everywhere his commissioners (missi
dominici) with orders to listen to complaints and redress grievances,
and to mitigate his father’s rule, which was rigorous in its application,
and yet insufficient to repress disturbance, notwithstanding its
preventive purpose and its watchful supervision.
Almost simultaneously with his accession, Louis committed an act more
serious and compromising. He had, by his wife Hermengarde, three sons,
Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis, aged respectively nineteen, eleven, and eight.
In 817 Louis summoned at Aix-la-Chapelle the general assembly of his
dominions; and there, whilst declaring that “neither to those who were
wisely-minded, nor to himself, did it appear expedient to break up, for
the love he bare his sons and by the will of man, the unity of the empire,
preserved by God himself,” he had resolved to share with his eldest son,
Lothaire, the imperial throne. Lothaire was in fact crowned emperor; and
his two brothers, Pepin and Louis, were crowned king, “in order that they
might reign, after their father’s death and under their brother and lord,
Lothaire, to wit: Pepin, over Aquitaine and a great part of Southern Gaul
and of Burgundy; Louis, beyond the Rhine, over Bavaria and the divers
peoplets in the east of Germany.” The rest of Gaul and of Germany, as well
as the kingdom of Italy, was to belong to Lothaire, emperor and head of
the Frankish monarchy, to whom his brothers would have to repair year by
year to come to an understanding with him and receive his instructions.
The last-named kingdom, the most considerable of the three, remained under
the direct government of Louis the Debonnair, and at the same time of his
son Lothaire, sharing the title of emperor. The two other sons, Pepin and
Louis, entered, notwithstanding their childhood, upon immediate
possession, the one of Aquitaine and the other of Bavaria, under the
superior authority of their father and their brother, the joint emperors.
Charlemagne had vigorously maintained the unity of the empire, for all
that he had delegated to two of his sons, Pepin and Louis, the government
of Italy and Aquitaine, with the title of king. Louis the Debonnair,
whilst regulating beforehand the division of his dominion, likewise
desired, as he said, to maintain the unity of the empire. But he forgot
that he was no Charlemagne.
It was not long before numerous mournful experiences showed to what extent
the unity of the empire required personal superiority in the emperor, and
how rapid would be the decay of the fabric when there remained nothing but
the title of the founder.
In 816 Pope Stephen IV. came to France to consecrate Louis the Debonnair
emperor. Many a time already the Popes had rendered the Frankish kings
this service and honor. The Franks had been proud to see their king,
Charlemagne, protecting Adrian I. against the Lombards; then crowned
emperor at Rome by Leo III., and then having his two sons, Pepin and
Louis, crowned at Rome, by the same Pope, kings respectively of Italy and
of Aquitaine. On these different occasions, Charlemagne, whilst testifying
the most profound respect for the Pope, had, in his relations with him,
always taken care to preserve, together with his political greatness, all
his personal dignity. But when, in 816, the Franks saw Louis the Pious not
only go out of Rheims to meet Stephen IV., but prostrate himself, from
head to foot, and rise only when the Pope held out a hand to him, the
spectators felt saddened and humiliated at the sight of their emperor in
the posture of a penitent monk.
Several insurrections burst out in the empire; the first amongst the
Basques of Aquitaine; the next in Italy, where Bernard, son of Pepin,
having, after his father’s death, become king in 812, with the consent of
his grandfather Charlemagne, could not quietly see his kingdom pass into
the hands of his cousin Lothaire at the orders of his uncle Louis. These
two attempts were easily repressed, but the third was more serious. It
took place in Brittany, amongst those populations of Armorica who were
still buried in their woods, and were excessively jealous of their
independence. In 818 they took for king one of their principal chieftains,
named Morvan; and, not confining themselves to a refusal of all tribute to
the king of the Franks, they renewed their ravages upon the Frankish
territories bordering on their frontier. Louis was at that time holding a
general assembly of his dominions at Aix-la-Chapelle; and Count Lantbert,
commandant of the marches of Brittany, came and reported to him what was
going on. A Frankish monk, named Ditcar, happened to be at the assembly:
he was a man of piety and sense, a friend of peace, and, moreover, with
some knowledge of the Breton king Morvan, as his monastery had property in
the neighborhood. Him the emperor commissioned to convey to the king his
grievances and his demands. After some days’ journey the monk passed the
frontier, and arrived at a vast space enclosed on one side by a noble
river, and on all the others by forests and swamps, hedges and ditches. In
the middle of this space was a large dwelling, which was Morvan’s. Ditcar
found it full of warriors, the king having, no doubt, some expedition on
hand. The monk announced himself as a messenger from the emperor of the
Franks. The style of announcement caused some confusion, at first, to the
Briton, who, however, hasted to conceal his emotion under an air of
good-will and joyousness, to impose upon his comrades. The latter were got
rid of; and the king remained alone with the monk, who explained the
object of his mission. He descanted upon the power of the Emperor Lotus,
recounted his complaints, and warned the Briton, kindly and in a private
capacity, of the danger of his situation, a danger so much the greater in
that he and his people would meet with the less consideration, seeing that
they kept up the religion of their Pagan forefathers. Morvan gave
attentive ear to this sermon, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his
foot tapping it from time to time. Ditcar thought he had succeeded; but an
incident supervened. It was the hour when Morvan’s wife was accustomed to
come and look for him ere they retired to the nuptial couch. She appeared,
eager to know who the stranger was, what he had come for, what he had
said, what answer he had received. She preluded her questions with oglings
and caresses; she kissed the knees, the hands, the beard, and the face of
the king, testifying her desire to be alone with him. “O king and glory of
the mighty Britons, dear spouse of mine, what tidings bringeth this
stranger? Is it peace, or is it war?” “This stranger,” answered Morvan
with a smile, “is an envoy of the Franks; but bring he peace or bring he
war, is the affair of men alone; as for thee, content thee with thy
woman’s duties.” Thereupon Ditcar, perceiving that he was countered, said
to Morvan, “Sir king, ‘tis time that I return; tell me what answer I am to
take back to my sovereign.” “Leave me this night to take thought thereon,”
replied the Breton chief, with a wavering air. When the morning came,
Ditcar presented himself once more to Morvan, whom he found up, but still
half-drunk, and full of very different sentiments from those of the night
before. It required some effort, stupefied and tottering as he was with
the effects of wine and the pleasures of the night, to say to Ditcar, “Go
back to thy king, and tell him from me that my land was never his, and
that I owe him nought of tribute or submission. Let him reign over the
Franks; as for me, I reign over the Britons. If he will bring war on me,
he will find me ready to pay him back.”
The monk returned to Louis the Debonnair, and rendered account of his
mission. War was resolved upon; and the emperor collected his troops,
Allemannians, Saxons, Thuringians, Burgundians, and Aquitanians, without
counting Franks or Gallo-Romans. They began their march, moving upon
Vannes; Louis was at their head, and the empress accompanied him, but he
left her, already ill and fatigued, at Angers. The Franks entered the
country of the Britons, searched the woods and morasses, found no armed
men in the open country, but encountered them in scattered and scanty
companies, at the entrance of all the defiles, on the heights commanding
pathways, and wherever men could hide themselves and await the moment for
appearing unexpectedly. The Franks heard them, from amidst the heather and
the brushwood, uttering shrill cries, to give warning one to another, or
to alarm the enemy. The Franks advanced cautiously, and at last arrived at
the entrance of the thick wood which surrounded Morvan’s abode. He had not
yet set out with the pick of the warriors he had about him; but, at the
approach of the Franks, he summoned his wife and his domestics, and said
to them, “Defend ye well this house and these woods; as for me, I am going
to march forward to collect my people; after which to return, but not
without booty and spoils.” He put on his armor, took a javelin in each
hand, and mounted his horse. “Thou seest,” said he to his wife, “these
javelins I brandish: I will bring them back to thee this very day dyed
with the blood of Franks. Farewell.” Setting out he pierced, followed by
his men, through the thickness of the forest, and advanced to meet the
Franks.
The battle began. The large numbers of the Franks, who covered the ground
for some distance, dismayed the Britons, and many of them fled, seeking
where they might hide themselves. Morvan, beside himself with rage, and at
the head of his most devoted followers, rushed down upon the Franks as if
to demolish them at a single stroke; and many fell beneath his blows. He
singled out a warrior of inferior grade, towards whom he made at a gallop,
and, insulting him by word of mouth, after the ancient fashion of the
Celtic warriors, cried, “Frank, I am going to give thee my first present,
a present which I have been keeping for thee a long while, and which I
hope thou wilt bear in mind;” and launched at him a javelin, which the
other received on his shield. “Proud Briton,” replied the Frank, “I have
received thy present, and I am going to give thee mine.” He dug both spurs
into his horse’s sides, and galloped down upon Morvan, who, clad though he
was in a coat of mail, fell pierced by the thrust of a lance. The Frank
had but time to dismount and cut off his head, when he fell himself,
mortally wounded by one of Morvan’s young warriors, but not without
having, in his turn, dealt the other his death-blow.
It spreads on all sides that Morvan is dead; and the Franks come thronging
to the scene of the encounter. There is picked up and passed from hand to
hand a head all bloody and fearfully disfigured. Ditcar the monk is called
to see it, and to say whether it is that of Morvan; but he has to wash the
mass of disfigurement, and to partially adjust the hair, before he can
pronounce that it is really Morvan’s. There is then no more doubt;
resistance is now impossible; the widow, the family, and the servants of
Morvan arrive, are brought before Louis the Debonnair, accept all the
conditions imposed upon them, and the Franks withdraw with the boast that
Brittany is henceforth their tributary. (Faits et testes de Louis le
Picux, a poem by Ermold le Noir, in M. Guizot’s Collection des
Memoires relatifs L’Histoire de France, t. iv., p. 1-113.—Fauriel,
Histoire de la Gaule, etc., t. iv., p. 77-88.)
On arriving at Angers, Louis found the Empress Hermengarde dying; and two
days afterwards she was dead. He had a tender heart, which was not proof
against sorrow; and he testified a desire to abdicate and turn monk. But
he was dissuaded from his purpose; for it was easy to influence his
resolutions. A little later, he was advised to marry again, and he
yielded. Several princesses were introduced; and he chose Judith of
Bavaria, daughter of Count Welf (Guelf), a family already powerful and in
later times celebrated. Judith was young, beautiful, witty, ambitious, and
skilled in the art of making the gift of pleasing subserve the passion for
ruling. Louis, during his expedition into Brittany, had just witnessed the
fatal result of a woman’s empire over her husband; he was destined himself
to offer a more striking and more long-lived example of it. In 823, he
had, by his new empress Judith, a son, whom he called Charles, and who was
hereafter to be known as Charles the Bald. This son became his mother’s
ruling, if not exclusive, passion, and the source of his father’s woes.
His birth could not fail to cause ill-temper and mistrust in Louis’s three
sons by Hermengarde, who were already kings. They had but a short time
previously received the first proof of their father’s weakness. In 822,
Louis, repenting of his severity towards his nephew, Bernard of Italy,
whose eyes he had caused to be put out as a punishment for rebellion, and
who had died in consequence, considered himself bound to perform at
Attigny, in the church and before the people, a solemn act of penance;
which was creditable to his honesty and piety, but the details left upon
the minds of the beholders an impression unfavorable to the emperor’s
dignity and authority. In 829, during an assembly held at Worms, he,
yielding to his wife’s entreaties and doubtless also to his own yearnings
towards his youngest son, set at nought the solemn act whereby, in 817, he
had shared his dominions amongst his three elder sons; and took away from
two of them, in Burgundy and Allemannia, some of the territories he had
assigned to them, and gave them to the boy Charles for his share.
Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis thereupon revolted. Court rivalries were added
to family differences. The emperor had summoned to his side a young
Southron, Bernard by name, duke of Septimania and son of Count William of
Toulouse, who had gallantly fought the Saracens. He made him his chief
chamberlain and his favorite counsellor. Bernard was bold, ambitious,
vain, imperious, and restless. He removed his rivals from court, and put
in their places his own creatures. He was accused not only of abusing the
emperor’s favor, but even of carrying on a guilty intrigue with the
Empress Judith. There grew up against him, and, by consequence, against
the emperor, the empress, and their youngest son a powerful opposition, in
which certain ecclesiastics, and, amongst them, Wala, abbot of Corbie,
cousin-german and but lately one of the privy counsellors of Charlemagne,
joined eagerly. Some had at heart the unity of the empire, which Louis was
breaking up more and more; others were concerned for the spiritual
interests of the Church which Louis, in spite of his piety and by reason
of his weakness, often permitted to be attacked. Thus strengthened, the
conspirators considered themselves certain of success. They had the
empress Judith carried off and shut up in the convent of St. Radegonde at
Poitiers; and Louis in person came to deliver himself up to them at
Compiegne, where they were assembled. There they passed a decree to the
effect that the power and title of emperor were transferred from Louis to
Lothaire, his eldest son; that the act whereby a share of the empire had
but lately beer assigned to Charles was annulled; and that the act of 817,
which had regulated the partition of Louis’s dominions after his death,
was once more in force. But soon there was a burst of reaction in favor of
the emperor; Lothaire’s two brothers, jealous of his late elevation, made
overtures to their father; the ecclesiastics were a little ashamed at
being mixed up in a revolt; the people felt pity for the poor, honest
emperor; and a general assembly, meeting at Nimeguen, abolished the acts
of Compiegne, and restored to Louis his title and his power. But it was
not long before there was revolt again, originating this time with Pepin,
king of Aquitaine. Louis fought him, and gave Aquitaine to Charles the
Bald. The alliance between the three sons of Hermengarde was at once
renewed; they raised an army; the emperor marched against them with his;
and the two hosts met between Colmar and Bale, in a place called le Champ
rouge (the field of red). Negotiations were set on foot; and Louis was
called upon to leave his wife Judith and his son Charles, and put himself
under the guardianship of his elder sons. He refused; but, just when the
conflict was about to commence, desertion took place in Louis’s army; most
of the prelates, laics, and men-at-arms who had accompanied him passed
over to the camp of Lothaire; and the field of red became the field of
falsehood (le Champ du mensonge). Louis, left almost alone, ordered
his attendants to withdraw, “being unwilling,” he said, “that any one of
them should lose life or limb on his account,” and surrendered to his
sons. They received him with great demonstrations of respect, but without
relinquishing the prosecution of their enterprise. Lothaire hastily
collected an assembly, which proclaimed him emperor, with the addition of
divers territories to the kingdoms of Aquitaine and Bavaria: and, three
months afterwards, another assembly, meeting at Compiegne, declared the
Emperor Louis to have forfeited the crown, “for having, by his faults and
incapacity, suffered to sink so sadly low the empire which had been raised
to grandeur and brought into unity by Charlemagne and his predecessors.”
Louis submitted to this decision; himself read out aloud, in the church of
St. Medard at Soissons, but not quite unresistingly, a confession, in
eight articles, of his faults, and, laying his baldric upon the altar,
stripped off his royal robe, and received from the hands of Ebbo,
archbishop of Rheims, the gray vestment of a penitent.
Lothaire considered his father dethroned for good, and himself henceforth
sole emperor; but he was mistaken. For six years longer the scenes which
have just been described kept repeating themselves again and again;
rivalries and secret plots began once more between the three victorious
brothers and their partisans; popular feeling revived in favor of Louis; a
large portion of the clergy shared it; several counts of Neustria and
Burgundy appeared in arms in the name of the deposed emperor; and the
seductive and able Judith came afresh upon the scene, and gained over to
the cause of her husband and her son a multitude of friends. In 834, two
assemblies, one meeting at St. Denis and the other at Thionville, annulled
all the acts of the assembly of Compiegne, and for the third time put
Louis in possession of the imperial title and power. He displayed no
violence in his use of it; but he was growing more and more irresolute and
weak, when, in 838, the second of his rebellious sons, Pepin, king of
Aquitaine, died suddenly. Louis, ever under the sway of Judith, speedily
convoked at Worms, in 839, once more and for the last time, a general
assembly, whereat, leaving his son Louis of Bavaria reduced to his kingdom
in Eastern Europe, he divided the rest of his dominions into two nearly
equal parts, separated by the course of the Meuse and the Rhone. Between
these two parts he left the choice to Lothaire, who took the eastern
portion, promising at the same time to guarantee the western portion to
his younger brother Charles. Louis the Germanic protested against this
partition, and took up arms to resist it. His father, the emperor, set
himself in motion towards the Rhine, to reduce him to submission; but, on
arriving close to Mayence, he caught a violent fever, and died on the 20th
of June, 840, at the castle of Ingelheim, on a little island in the river.
His last acts were a fresh proof of his goodness towards even his
rebellious sons, and of his solicitude for his last-born. He sent to Louis
the Germanic his pardon, and to Lothaire the golden crown and sword, at
the same time bidding him fulfil his father’s wishes on behalf of Charles
and Judith.
There is no telling whether, in the credulousness of his good nature,
Louis had, at his dying hour, any great confidence in the appeal he made
to his son Lothaire, and in the impression which would be produced on his
other son, Louis of Bavaria, by the pardon bestowed. The prayers of the
dying are of little avail against violent passions and barbaric manners.
Scarcely was Louis the Debonnair dead, when Lothaire was already
conspiring against young Charles, and was in secret alliance, for his
despoilment, with Pepin II., the late king of Aquitaine’s son, who had
taken up arms for the purpose of seizing his father’s kingdom, in the
possession of which his grandfather Louis had not been pleased to confirm
him. Charles suddenly learned that his mother Judith was on the point of
being besieged in Poitiers by the Aquitanians; and, in spite of the
friendly protestations sent to him by Lothaire, it was not long before he
discovered the plot formed against him. He was not wanting in shrewdness
or energy; and, having first provided for his mother’s safety, he set
about forming an alliance, in the cause of their common interests, with
his other brother, Louis the Germanic, who was equally in danger from the
ambition of Lothaire. The historians of the period do not say what
negotiator was employed by Charles on this distant and delicate mission;
but several circumstances indicate that the Empress Judith herself
undertook it; that she went in quest of the king of Bavaria; and that it
was she who, with her accustomed grace and address, determined him to make
common cause with his younger against their eldest brother. Divers
incidents retarded for a whole year the outburst of this family plot, and
of the war of which it was the precursor. The position of the young King
Charles appeared for some time a very bad one; but “certain chieftains,”
says the historian Nithard, “faithful to his mother and to him, and having
nothing more to lose than life or limb, chose rather to die gloriously
than to betray their king.” The arrival of Louis the Germanic with his
troops helped to swell the forces and increase the confidence of Charles;
and it was on the 21st of June, 841, exactly a year after the death of
Louis the Debonnair, that the two armies, that of Lothaire and Pepin on
the one side, and that of Charles the Bald and Louis the Germanic on the
other, stood face to face in the neighborhood of the village of
Fontenailles, six leagues from Auxerre, on the rivulet of Audries. Never,
according to such evidence as is forthcoming, since the battle on the
plains of Chalons against the Huns, and that of Poitiers against the
Saracens, had so great masses of men been engaged. “There would be nothing
untruthlike,” says that scrupulous authority, M. Fauriel, “in putting the
whole number of combatants at three hundred thousand; and there is nothing
to show that either of the two armies was much less numerous than the
other.” However that may be, the leaders hesitated for four days to come
to blows; and whilst they were hesitating, the old favorite not only of
Louis the Debonnair, but also, according to several chroniclers, of the
Empress Judith, held himself aloof with his troops in the vicinity, having
made equal promise of assistance to both sides, and waiting, to govern his
decision, for the prospect afforded by the first conflict. The battle
began on the 25th of June, at daybreak, and was at first in favor of
Lothaire; but the troops of Charles the Bald recovered the advantage which
had been lost by Louis the Germanic, and the action was soon nothing but a
terribly simple scene of carnage between enormous masses of men, charging
hand to hand, again and again, with a front extending over a couple of
leagues. Before midday the slaughter, the plunder, the spoliation of the
dead—all was over; the victory of Charles and Louis was complete the
victors had retired to their camp, and there remained nothing on the field
of battle but corpses in thick heaps or a long line, according as they had
fallen in the disorder of flight or steadily fighting in their ranks. . .
. “Accursed be this day!” cries Angilbert, one of Lothaire’s officers, in
rough Latin verse; “be it unnumbered in the return of the year, but wiped
out of all remembrance! Be it unlit by the light of the sun! Be it without
either dawn or twilight! Accursed, also, be this night, this awful night
in which fell the brave, the most expert in battle! Eye ne’er hath seen
more fearful slaughter: in streams of blood fell Christian men; the linen
vestments of the dead did whiten the champaign even as it is whitened by
the birds of autumn!”
In spite of this battle, which appeared a decisive one, Lothaire made
zealous efforts to continue the struggle; he scoured the countries wherein
he hoped to find partisans: to the Saxons he promised the unrestricted
re-establishment of their pagan worship, and several of the Saxon tribes
responded to his appeal. Louis the Germanic and Charles the Bald, having
information of these preliminaries, resolved to solemnly renew their
alliance; and, seven months after their victory at Fontenailles, in
February, 842, they repaired both of them, each with his army, to
Argentaria, on the right bank of the Rhine, between Bale and Strasbourg,
and there, at an open-air meeting, Louis first, addressing the chieftains
about him in the German tongue, said, “Ye all know how often, since our
father’s death, Lothaire hath attacked us, in order to destroy us, this my
brother and me. Having never been able, as brothers and Christians, or in
any just way, to obtain peace from him, we were constrained to appeal to
the judgment of God. Lothaire was beaten and retired, whither he could,
with his following; for we, restrained by paternal affection and moved
with compassion for Christian people, were unwilling to pursue them to
extermination. Neither then nor aforetime did we demand ought else save
that each of us should be maintained in his rights. But he, rebelling
against the judgment of God, ceaseth not to attack us as enemies, this my
brother and me; and he destroyeth our peoples with fire and pillage and
the sword. That is the cause which hath united us afresh; and, as we trove
that ye doubt the soundness of our alliance and our fraternal union, we
have resolved to bind ourselves afresh by this oath in your presence,
being led thereto by no prompting of wicked covetousness, but only that we
may secure our common advantage in case that, by your aid, God should
cause us to obtain peace. If, then, I violate—which God forbid—this
oath that I am about to take to my brother, I hold you all quit of
submission to me and of the faith ye have sworn to me.”
Charles repeated this speech, word for word, to his own troops, in the
Romance language, in that idiom derived from a mixture of Latin and of the
tongues of ancient Gaul, and spoken, thenceforth, with varieties of
dialect and pronunciation, in nearly all parts of Frankish Gaul. After
this address, Louis pronounced and Charles repeated after him, each in his
own tongue, the oath couched in these terms: “For the love of God, for the
Christian people, and for our common weal, from this day forth and so long
as God shall grant me power and knowledge, I will defend this my brother,
and will be an aid to him in everything, as one ought to defend his
brother, provided that he do likewise unto me; and I will never make with
Lothaire any covenant which may be, to my knowledge, to the damage of this
my brother.”
When the two brothers had thus sworn, the two armies, officers and men,
took, in their turn, a similar oath, going bail, in a mass, for the
engagements of their kings. Then they took up their quarters, all of them,
for some time, between Worms and Mayence, and followed up their political
proceeding with military fetes, precursors of the knightly tournaments of
the middle ages. “A place of meeting was fixed,” says the contemporary
historian Nithard, “at a spot suitable for this kind of exercises. Here
were drawn up, on one side, a certain number of combatants, Saxons,
Vasconians, Austrasians, or Britons; there were ranged, on the opposite
side, an equal number of warriors, and the two divisions advanced, each
against the other, as if to attack. One of them, with their bucklers at
their backs, took to flight, as if to seek, in the main body, shelter
against those who were pursuing them; then suddenly, facing about, they
dashed out in pursuit of those before whom they had just been flying. This
sport lasted until the two kings, appearing with all the youth of their
suites, rode up at a gallop, brandishing their spears and chasing first
one lot and then the other It was a fine sight to see so much temper
amongst so many valiant folks, for great as were the number and the
mixture of different nationalities, no one was insulted or maltreated,
though the contrary is often the case amongst men in small numbers and
known one to another.”
After four or five months of tentative measures or of incidents which
taught both parties that they could not, either of them, hope to
completely destroy their opponents, the two allied brothers received at
Verdun, whither they had repaired to concert their next movement, a
messenger from Lothaire, with peaceful proposals which they were unwilling
to reject. The principal was that, with the exception of Italy, Aquitaine,
and Bavaria, to be secured without dispute to their then possessors, the
Frankish empire should be divided into three portions, that the arbiters
elected to preside over the partition should swear to make it as equal as
possible, and that Lothaire should have his choice, with the title of
Emperor. About mid June, 842, the three brothers met on an island of the
Saone, near Chalons, where they began to discuss the questions which
divided them; but it was not till more than a year after, in August, 843,
that assembling all three of them, with their umpires, at Verdun, they at
last came to an agreement about the partition of the Frankish empire, save
the three countries which it had been beforehand agreed to except. Louis
kept all the provinces of Germany of which he was already in possession,
and received besides, on the left bank of the Rhine, the towns of Mayence,
Worms, and Spire, with the territory appertaining to them. Lothaire, for
his part, had the eastern belt of Gaul, bounded on one side by the Rhine
and the Alps, on the other by the courses of the Meuse, the Saone, and the
Rhone, starting from the confluence of the two latter rivers, and,
further, the country comprised between the Meuse and the Scheldt, together
with certain countships lying to the west of that river. To Charles fell
all the rest of Gaul: Vasconia or Biscaye, Septimania, the marches of
Spain, beyond the Pyrenees, and the other countries of Southern Gaul which
had enjoyed hitherto, under the title of the Kingdom of Aquitaine, a
special government subordinated to the general government of the empire,
but distinct from it, lost this last remnant of their Gallo-Roman
nationality, and became integral portions of Frankish Gaul, which fell by
partition to Charles the Bald, and formed one and the same kingdom under
one and the same king.
Thus fell through and disappeared, in 843, by virtue of the treaty of
Verdun, the second of Charlemagne’s grand designs, the resuscitation of
the Roman empire by means of the Frankish and Christian masters of Gaul.
The name of emperor still retained a certain value in the minds of the
people, and still remained an object of ambition to princes; but the
empire was completely abolished, and in its stead sprang up three
kingdoms, independent one of another, without any necessary connection or
relation. One of the three was thenceforth France.
In this great event are comprehended two facts; the disappearance of the
empire and the formation of the three kingdoms which took its place. The
first is easily explained. The resuscitation of the Roman empire had been
a dream of ambition and ignorance on the part of a great man, but a
barbarian. Political unity and central absolute power had been the
essential characteristics of that empire. They became introduced and
established, through a long succession of ages, on the ruins of the
splendid Roman republic, destroyed by its own dissensions, under favor of
the still great influence of the old Roman senate, though fallen from its
high estate, and beneath the guardianship of the Roman legions and
imperial pretorians. Not one of these conditions, not one of these forces,
was to be met with in the Roman world reigned over by Charlemagne. The
nation of the Franks and Charlemagne himself were but of yesterday; the
new emperor had neither ancient senate to hedge at the same time that it
obeyed him, nor old bodies of troops to support him. Political unity and
absolute power were repugnant alike to the intellectual and the social
condition, to the national manners and personal sentiments of the
victorious barbarians. The necessity of placing their conquests beyond the
reach of a new swarm of barbarians and the personal ascendency of
Charlemagne were the only things which gave his government a momentary
gleam of success in the way of unity and of factitious despotism under the
name of empire. In 814, Charlemagne had made territorial security an
accomplished fact; but the personal power he had exercised disappeared
with him. The new Gallo-Frankish community recovered, under the mighty but
gradual influence of Christianity, its proper and natural course,
producing disruption into different local communities and bold struggles
for individual liberties, either one with another, or against whosoever
tried to become their master.
As for the second fact, the formation of the three kingdoms which were the
issue of the treaty of Verdun, various explanations have been given of it.
This distribution of certain peoples of Western Europe into three distinct
and independent groups, Italians, Germans, and French, has been attributed
at one time to a diversity of histories and manners; at another to
geographical causes and to what is called the rule of natural frontiers;
and oftener still to a spirit of nationality and to differences of
language. Let none of these causes be gainsaid; they all exercised some
sort of influence, but they are all incomplete in themselves and far too
redolent of theoretical system. It is true that Germany, France, and Italy
began, at that time, to emerge from the chaos into which they had been
plunged by barbaric invasion and the conquests of Charlemagne, and to form
themselves into quite distinct nations; but there were in each of the
kingdoms of Lothaire, of Louis the Germanic, and of Charles the Bald,
populations widely differing in race, language, manners, and geographical
affinity, and it required many great events and the lapse of many
centuries to bring about the degree of national unity they now possess. To
say nothing touching the agency of individual and independent forces,
which is always considerable, although so many men of intellect ignore it
in the present day, what would have happened, had any one of the three new
kings, Lothaire, or Louis the Germanic, or Charles the Bald, been a second
Charlemagne, as Charlemagne had been a second Charles Martel? Who can say
that, in such a case, the three kingdoms would have taken the form they
took in 843?
Happily or unhappily, it was not so; none of Charlemagne’s successors was
capable of exercising on the events of his time, by virtue of his brain
and his own will, any notable influence. Not that they were all
unintelligent, or timid, or indolent. It has been seen that Louis the
Debonnair did not lack virtues and good intentions; and Charles the Bald
was clear-sighted, dexterous, and energetic; he had a taste for
information and intellectual distinction; he liked and sheltered men of
learning and letters, and to such purpose that, instead of speaking, as
under Charlemagne, of the school of the palace, people called the palace
of Charles the Bald the palace of the school. Amongst the eleven kings who
after him ascended the Carlovingian throne, several, such as Louis III.
and Carloman, and, especially, Louis the Ultramarine (d’Outremer) and
Lothaire, displayed, on several occasions, energy and courage; and the
kings elected, at this epoch, without the pale of the Carlovingian dynasty—Eudes
in 887 and Raoul in 923—gave proofs of a valor both discreet and
effectual. The Carlovingians did not, as the Merovingians did, end in
monkish retirement or shameful inactivity even the last of them, and the
only one termed sluggard, Louis V., was getting ready, when he died, for
an expedition in Spain against the Saracens. The truth is that, mediocre
or undecided or addle-pated as they may have been, they all succumbed,
internally and externally, without initiating and without resisting, to
the course of events, and that, in 987, the fall of the Carlovingian line
was the natural and easily accomplished consequence of the new social
condition which had been preparing in France under the empire.
CHAPTER XIII.
FEUDAL FRANCE AND HUGH CAPET.
The reader has just seen that, twenty-nine years after the death of
Charlemagne, that is, in 843, when, by the treaty of Verdun, the sons of
Louis the Debonnair had divided amongst them his dominions, the great
empire split up into three distinct and independent kingdoms—the
kingdoms of Italy, Germany, and France. The split did not stop there.
Forty-five years later, at the end of the ninth century, shortly after the
death of Charles the Fat, the last of the Carlovingians who appears to
have re-united for a while all the empire of Charlemagne, this empire had
begotten seven instead of three kingdoms, those of France, of Navarre, of
Provence or Cisjuran Burgundy, of Trans-juran Burgundy, or Lorraine, of
Allemannia, and of Italy. This is what had become of the factitious and
ephemeral unity of that Empire of the West which Charlemagne had wished to
put in the place of the Roman empire.
We will leave where they are the three distinct and independent kingdoms,
and turn our introspective gaze upon the kingdom of France. There we
recognize the same fact; there the same work of dismemberment is going on.
About the end of the ninth century there were already twenty-nine
provinces or fragments of provinces which had become petty states, the
former governors of which, under the names of dukes, counts, marquises,
and viscounts, were pretty nearly real sovereigns. Twenty-nine great
fiefs, which have played a special part in French history, date back to
this epoch.
These petty states were not all of equal importance or in possession of a
perfectly similar independence; there were certain ties uniting them to
other states, resulting in certain reciprocal obligations which became the
basis, or, one might say, the constitution of the feudal community; but
their prevailing feature was, nevertheless, isolation, personal existence.
They were really petty states begotten from the dismemberment of a great
territory; those local governments were formed at the expense of a central
power.
From the end of the ninth pass we to the end of the tenth century, to the
epoch when the Capetians take the place of the Carlovingians. Instead of
seven kingdoms to replace the empire of Charlemagne, there were then no
more than four. The kingdoms of Provence and Trans-juran Burgundy had
formed, by re-union, the kingdom of Arles. The kingdom of Lorraine was no
more than a duchy in dispute between Allemannia and France. The Emperor
Otho the Great had united the kingdom of Italy to the empire of.
Allemannia. Overtures had produced their effects amongst the great states.
But in the interior of the kingdom of France, dismemberment had held on
its course; and instead of the twenty-nine petty states or great fiefs
observable at the end of the ninth century, we find at the end of the
tenth, fifty-five actually established. (Vide Guizot’s Histoire
de la Civilisation, t. ii., pp. 238-246.)
Now, how was this ever-increasing dismemberment accomplished? What causes
determined it, and little by little made it the substitute for the unity
of the empire? Two causes, perfectly natural and independent of all human
calculation, one moral and the other political. They were the absence from
the minds of men of any general and dominant idea; and the reflux, in
social relations and manners, of the individual liberties but lately
repressed or regulated by the strong hand of Charlemagne. In times of
formation or transition, states and governments conform to the measure,
one had almost said to the height, of the men of the period, their ideas,
their sentiments, and their personal force of character; when ideas are
few and narrow, when sentiments spread only over a confined circle, when
means of action and expansion are wanting to men, communities become petty
and local, just as the thoughts and existence of their members are. Such
was the state of things in the ninth and tenth centuries; there was no
general and fructifying idea, save the Christian creed; no great
intellectual vent; no great national feeling; no easy and rapid means of
communication; mind and life were both confined in a narrow space, and
encountered, at every step, stoppages and obstacles well nigh
insurmountable. At the same time, by the fall of the empires of Rome and
of Charlemagne, men regained possession of the rough and ready individual
liberties which were the essential characteristic of Germanic manners:
Franks, Visigoths, Burgundians, Saxons, Lombards, none of these new
peoples had lived as the Greeks and Romans had, under the sway of an
essentially political idea, the idea of city, state, and fatherland: they
were free men, and not citizens; comrades, not members of one and the same
public body. They gave up their vagabond life; they settled upon a soil
conquered by themselves and partitioned amongst themselves; and there they
lived each by himself, master of himself and all that was his, family,
servitors, husbandmen, and slaves: the territorial domain became the
fatherland, and the owner remained a free man, a local and independent
chieftain, at his own risk and peril. And this, quite naturally, grew up
feudal France, when the new comers, settled in their new abodes, were no
more swayed or hampered by the vain attempt to re-establish the Roman
empire.
The consequences of such a state of things and of such a disposition of
persons were rapidly developed. Territorial ownership became the
fundamental characteristic of and warranty for independence and social
importance. Local sovereignty, if not complete and absolute, at least in
respect of its principal rights, right of making war, right of judicature,
right of taxation, and right of regulating the police, became one with the
territorial ownership, which before long grew to be hereditary, whether,
under the title of alleu (allodium), it had been originally
perfectly independent and exempt from any feudal tie, or, under the title
of benefice, had arisen from grants of land made by the chieftain to his
followers, on condition of certain obligations. The offices, that is, the
divers functions, military or civil, conferred by the king on his lieges,
also ended by becoming hereditary. Having become established in fact, this
heirship in lands and local powers was soon recognized by the law. A
capitulary of Charles the Bald, promulgated in 877, contains the two
following provisions:—
“If, after our death, any one of our lieges, moved by love for God and our
person, desire to renounce the world, and if he have a son or other
relative capable of serving the public weal, let him be free to transmit
to him his benefices and his honor, according to his pleasure.”
“If a count of this kingdom happen to die, and his son be about our
person, we will that our son; together with those of our lieges who may
chance to be the nearest relatives of the deceased count, as well as with
the other officers of the said countship and the bishop of the diocese
wherein it is situated, shall provide for its administration until the
death of the heretofore count shall have been announced to us and we have
been enabled to confer on the son, present at our court, the honors
wherewith his father was invested.”
Thus the king still retained the nominal right of conferring on the son
the offices or local functions of the father, but he recognized in the son
the right to obtain them. A host of documents testify that at this epoch,
when, on the death of a governor of a province, the king attempted to give
his countship to some one else than his descendants, not only did personal
interest resist, but such a measure was considered a violation of right.
Under the reign of Louis the Stutterer, son of Charles the Bald, two of
his lieges, Wilhelm and Engelschalk, held two countships on the confines
of Bavaria; and, at their death, their offices were given to Count Arbo,
to the prejudice of their sons. “The children and their relatives,” says
the chronicler, “taking that as a gross injustice, said that matters ought
to go differently, and that they would die by the sword or Arbo should
give up the courtship of their family.” Heirship in territorial ownerships
and their local rights, whatever may have originally been their character;
heirship in local offices or powers, military or civil, primarily
conferred by the king; and, by consequence, hereditary union of
territorial ownership and local government, under the condition, a little
confused and precarious, of subordinated relations and duties between
suzerain and vassal—such was, in law and in fact, the feudal order
of things. From the ninth to the tenth century it had acquired full force.
This order of things being thus well defined, we find ourselves face to
face with an indisputable historic fact: no period, no system has ever, in
France, remained so odious to the public instincts. And this antipathy is
not peculiar to our age, nor merely the fruit of that great revolution
which not long since separated, as by a gulf, the French present from its
past. Go back to any portion of French history, and stop where you will;
and you will everywhere find the feudal system considered, by the mass of
the population, a foe to be fought and fought down at any price. At all
times, whoever dealt it a blow has been popular in France.
The reasons for this fact are not all, or even the chief of them, to be
traced to the evils which, in France, the people had to endure under the
feudal system. It is not evil plight which is most detested and feared by
peoples; they have more than once borne, faced, and almost wooed it, and
there are woful epochs, the memory of which has remained dear. It is in
the political character of feudalism, in the nature and shape of its
power, that we find lurking that element of popular aversion which, in
France at least, it has never ceased to inspire.
It was a confederation of petty sovereigns, of petty despots, unequal
amongst themselves, and having, one towards another, certain duties and
rights, but invested in their own domains, over their personal and direct
subjects, with arbitrary and absolute power. That is the essential element
of the feudal system; therein it differs from every other aristocracy,
every other form of government.
There has been no scarcity in this world of aristocracies and despotisms.
There have been peoples arbitrarily governed, nay, absolutely possessed by
a single man, by a college of priests, by a body of patricians. But none
of these despotic governments was like the feudal system.
In the case where the sovereign power has been placed in the hands of a
single man, the condition of the people has been servile and woful. At
bottom the feudal system was somewhat better; and it will presently be
explained why. Meanwhile, it must be acknowledged that that condition
often appeared less burdensome, and obtained more easy acceptance than the
feudal system. It was because, under the great absolute monarchies, men
did, nevertheless, obtain some sort of equality and tranquillity. A
shameful equality and a fatal tranquillity, no doubt; but such as peoples
are sometimes contented with under the dominance of certain circumstances,
or in the last gasp of their existence. Liberty, equality, and
tranquillity were all alike wanting, from the tenth to the thirteenth
century, to the inhabitants of each lord’s domains; their sovereign was at
their very doors, and none of them was hidden from him, or beyond reach of
his mighty arm. Of all tyrannies, the worst is that which can thus keep
account of its subjects, and which sees, from its seat, the limits of its
empire. The caprices of the human will then show themselves in all their
intolerable extravagance, and, moreover, with irresistible promptness. It
is then, too, that inequality of conditions makes itself more rudely felt;
riches, might, independence, every advantage and every right present
themselves every instant to the gaze of misery, weakness, and servitude.
The inhabitants of fiefs could not find consolation in the bosom of
tranquillity; incessantly mixed up in the quarrels of their lord, a prey
to his neighbors’ devastations, they led a life still more precarious and
still more restless than that of the lords themselves, and they had to put
up at one and the same time with the presence of war, privilege, and
absolute power. Nor did the rule of feudalism differ less from that of a
college of priests or a senate of patricians than from the despotism of an
individual. In the two former systems we have an aristocratic body
governing the mass of the people; in the feudal system we have an
aristocracy resolved into individuals, each of whom governs on his own
private account a certain number of persons dependent upon him alone. Be
the aristocratic body a clergy, its power has its root in creeds which are
common to itself and its subjects. Now, in every creed common to those who
command and those who obey there is a moral tie, an element of sympathetic
equality, and on the part of those who obey a tacit adhesion to the rule.
Be it a senate of patricians that reigns, it cannot govern so
capriciously, so arbitrarily, as an individual. There are differences and
discussions in the very bosom of the government; there may be, nay, there
always are, formed factions, parties which, in order to arrive at their
own ends, strive to conciliate the favor of the people, sometimes take in
hand its interests, and, however bad may be its condition, the people, by
sharing in its masters’ rivalries, exercises some sort of influence over
its own destiny. Feudalism was not, properly speaking, an aristocratic
government, a senate of kings—to use the language used by Cineas to
Pyrrhus; it was a collection of individual despotisms, exercised by
isolated aristocrats, each of whom, being sovereign in his own domains,
had to give no account to another, and asked nobody’s opinion about his
conduct towards his subjects.
Is it astonishing that such a system incurred, on the part of the peoples,
more hatred than even those which had reduced them to a more monotonous
and more lasting servitude? There was despotism, just as in pure
monarchies, and there was privilege, just as in the very closest
aristocracies. And both obtruded themselves in the most offensive, and, so
to speak, crude form. Despotism was not tapered off by means of the
distant and elevation of a throne; and privilege did not veil itself
behind the majesty of a large body. Both were the appurtenances of an
individual ever present and ever alone, ever at his subjects’ doors, and
never called upon, in dealing with their lot, to gather his peers around
him.
And now we will leave the subjects in the case of feudalism, and consider
the masters, the owners of fiefs, and their relations one with another. We
here behold quite a different spectacle; we see liberties, rights, and
guarantees, which not only give protection and honor to those who enjoy
them, but of which the tendency and effect are to open to the subject
population an outlet towards a better future.
It could not, in fact, be otherwise: for, on the one hand, feudal society
was not wanting in dignity and glory; and, on the other, the feudal system
did not, as the theocracy of Egypt or the despotism of Asia did, condemn
its subjects irretrievably to slavery. It oppressed them; but they ended
by having the power as well as the will to go free.
It is the fault of pure monarchy to set up power so high, and encompass it
with such splendor, that the possessor’s head is turned, and that those
who are beneath it dare scarcely look upon it. The sovereign thinks
himself a god; and the people fall down and worship him. But it was not so
in society under owners of fiefs: the grandeur was neither dazzling nor
unapproachable; it was but a short step from vassal to suzerain; they
lived familiarly one with another, without any possibility that
superiority should think itself illimitable, or subordination think itself
servile. Thence came that extension of the domestic circle, that
ennoblement of personal service, from which sprang one of the most
generous sentiments of the middle ages, fealty, which reconciled the
dignity of the man with the devotion of the vassal.
Further, it was not from a numerous aristocratic senate, but from himself,
and almost from himself alone, that every possessor of fiefs derived his
strength and his lustre. Isolated as he was in his domains, it was for him
to maintain himself therein, to extend them, to keep his subjects
submissive and his vassals faithful, and to correct those who were wanting
in obedience to him, or who ignored their duties as members of the feudal
hierarchy. It was, as it were, a people consisting of scattered citizens,
of whom each, ever armed, accompanied by his following or intrenched in
his castle, kept watch himself over his own safety and his own rights,
relying far more on his own courage and his own renown than on the
protection of the public authorities. Such a condition bears less
resemblance to an organized and settled society than to a constant
prospect of peril and war; but the energy and the dignity of the
individual were kept up in it, and a more extended and better regulated
society might issue therefrom.
And it did issue. This society of the future was not slow to sprout and
grow in the midst of that feudal system so turbulent, so oppressive, so
detested. For five centuries, from the invasion of the barbarians to the
fall of the Carlovingians, France presents the appearance of being
stationary in the middle of chaos. Over this long, dark space of anarchy,
feudalism is slowly taking shape, at the expense, at one time, of liberty,
at another, of order; not as a real rectification of the social condition,
but as the only order of things which could possibly acquire fixity, as,
in fact, a sort of unpleasant but necessary alternative. No sooner is the
feudal system in force, than, with its victory scarcely secured, it is
attacked in the lower grades by the mass of the people attempting to
regain certain liberties, ownerships, and rights, and in the highest by
royalty laboring to recover its public character, to become once more the
head of a nation. It is no longer the case of free men in a vague and
dubious position, unsuccessfully defending, against the nomination of the
chieftains whose lands they inhabit, the wreck of their independence,
whether Gallic, or Roman, or barbaric; it is the case of burgesses,
agriculturists, and serfs, who know well what their grievances and who
their oppressors are, and who are working to get free. It is no longer the
case of a king doubtful about his title and the nature of his power, at
one time a chieftain of warriors, at another the anointed of the Most
High; here a mayor of the palace of some sluggard barbarian, there the
heir of the emperors of Rome; a sovereign tossing about confusedly amidst
followers or servitors eager at one time to invade his authority, at
another to render themselves completely isolated: it is the case of one of
the premier feudal lords exerting himself to become the master of all, to
change his suzerainty into sovereignty. Thus, in spite of the servitude
into which the people had sunk at the end of the tenth century, from this
moment the enfranchisement of the people makes way. In spite of the
weakness, or rather nullity, of the regal power at the same epoch, from
this moment the regal power begins to gain ground. That monarchical system
which the genius of Charlemagne could not found, kings far inferior to
Charlemagne will little by little make triumphant. Those liberties and
those guarantees which the German warriors were incapable of transmitting
to a well-regulated society, the commonalty will regain one after another.
Nothing but feudalism could have sprung from the womb of barbarism; but
scarcely is feudalism established when we see monarchy and liberty nascent
and growing in its womb.
From the end of the ninth to the end of the tenth century, two families
were, in French history, the representatives and instruments of the two
systems thus confronted and conflicting at that epoch, the imperial which
was falling, and the feudal which was rising. After the death of
Charlemagne, his descendants, to the number of ten, from Louis the
Debonnair to Louis the Sluggard, strove obstinately, but in vain, to
maintain the unity of the empire and the unity of the central power. In
four generations, on the other hand, the descendants of Robert the Strong
climbed to the head of feudal France. The former, though German in race,
were imbued with the maxims, the traditions, and the pretensions of that
Roman world which had been for a while resuscitated by their glorious
ancestor; and they claimed it as their heritage. The latter preserved, at
their settlement upon Gallo-Roman territory, Germanic sentiments, manners,
and instincts, and were occupied only with the idea of getting more and
more settled, and greater and greater in the new society which was little
by little being formed upon the soil won by the barbarians, their
forefathers. Louis the Ultra-marine and Lothaire were not, we may suppose,
less personally brave than Robert the Strong and his son Eudes; but when
the Northmen put the Frankish dominions in peril, it was not to the
descendants of Charlemagne, not to the emperor Charles the Fat, but to the
local and feudal chieftain, to Eudes, count of Paris, that the population
turned for salvation: and Eudes it was who saved them.
In this painful parturition of French monarchy, one fact deserves to be
remarked, and that is, the lasting respect attached, in the minds of the
people, to the name and the reminiscences of the Carlovingian rule,
notwithstanding its decay. It was not alone the lustre of that name, and
of the memory of Charlemagne which inspired and prolonged this respect; a
certain instinctive feeling about the worth of hereditary monarchy, as an
element of stability and order, already existed amongst the populations,
and glimpses thereof were visible amongst the rivals of the royal family
in the hour of its dissolution. It had been consecrated by religion; the
title of anointed of the Most High was united, in its case, to that of
lawful heir. Why did Hugh the Great, duke of France, in spite of favorable
opportunities and very palpable temptations, abstain perseveringly from
taking the crown, and leave it tottering upon the heads of Louis the
Ultramarine and Lothaire? Why did his son, Hugh Capet himself, wait, for
his election as king, until Louis the Sluggard was dead, and the
Carlovingian line had only a collateral and discredited representative? In
these hesitations and lingerings of the great feudal chieftains, there is
a forecast of the authority already vested in the principle of hereditary
monarchy, at the very moment when it was about to be violated, and of the
great part which would be played by that principle in the history of
France.
At last the day of decision arrived for Hugh Capet. There is nothing to
show that he had conspired to hasten it, but he had foreseen the
probability of it, and, if he had done nothing to pave the way for it, he
had held himself, so far as he was concerned, in readiness for it. During
a trip which he made to Rome in 981, he had entered into kindly personal
relations with the Emperor Otho II., king of Germany, the most important
of France’s neighbors, and the most disposed to meddle in her affairs. In
France, Hugh Capet had formed a close friendship with Adalberon,
archbishop of Rheims, the most notable and most able of the French
prelates. The event showed the value of such a friend. On the 21st of May,
987, King Louis V. died without issue; and, after his obsequies, the
grandees of the kingdom met together at Senlis. We will here borrow the
text of a contemporary witness, Richer, the only one of the chroniclers of
that age who deserves the name of historian, whether for the authenticity
of his testimony or the extent and clearness of his narrative. “The
bishop,” he says, “took his place, together with the duke, in the midst of
the assembly, and said to them, ‘I come and sit down amongst you to treat
of the affairs of the state. Far from me be any design of saying anything
but what has for aim the advantage of the common weal. As I do not see
here all the princes whose wisdom and energy might be useful in the
government of the kingdom, it seems to me that the choice of a king should
be put off for some time, in order that, at a period fixed upon, all may
be able to meet in assembly, and that every opinion, having been discussed
and set forth in the face of day, may thus produce its full effect. May it
please you, then, all of ye who are here assembled to deliberate, to bind
yourselves in conjunction with me by oath to this illustrious duke, and to
promise between his hands not to engage yourselves in any way in the
election of a Head, and not to do anything to this end until we be
re-assembled here to deliberate upon that choice.’ This opinion was well
received and approved of by all: oath was taken between the hands of the
duke, and the time was fixed at which the meeting should assemble again.”
Before the day fixed for re-assembling, the last of the descendants of
Charlemagne, Charles, duke of Lower Lorraine, brother of the late King
Lothaire, and paternal uncle of the late King Louis, “went to Rheims in
quest of the archbishop, and thus spake to him about his rights to the
throne: ‘All the world knoweth, venerable father, that, by hereditary
right, I ought to succeed my brother and my nephew. I am wanting in nought
that should be required, before all, from those who ought to reign, to
wit, birth and the courage to dare. Wherefore am I thrust out from the
territory which all the world knows to have been possessed by my
ancestors? To whom could I better address myself than to you, when all the
supports of my race have disappeared? To whom, bereft as I am of honorable
protection, should I have recourse but to you? By whom, if not by you,
should I be restored to the honors of my fathers? Please God things turn
out favorably for me and for my fortunes! Rejected, what, can become of me
save to be exhibited as a spectacle to all who look on me? Suffer yourself
to be moved by some feeling of humanity: be compassionate towards a man
who has been tried by so many reverses!’”
Such language was more calculated to inspire contempt than compassion.
“The metropolitan, firm in his resolution, gave for answer these few
words: ‘Thou hast ever been associated with the perjured, the
sacrilegious, and the wicked of every sort, and now thou art still
unwilling to separate from them: how canst thou, in company with such men,
and by means of such men, seek to attain to the sovereign power?’ And when
Charles replied that he must not abandon his friends, but rather gain over
others, the bishop said to himself, ‘Now that he possesses no position of
dignity, he hath allied himself with the wicked, whose companionship he
will not, in any way, give up: what misfortune would it be for the good if
he were elected to the throne!’ To Charles, however, he made answer that
he would do nought without the consent of the princes; and so left him.”
At the time fixed, probably the 29th or 30th of June, 987, the grandees of
Frankish Gaul who had bound themselves by oath re-assembled at Senlis.
Hugh Capet was present with his brother Henry of Burgundy, and his
brother-in-law Richard the Fearless, duke of Normandy. The majority of the
direct vassals of the crown were also there—Foulques Nerra (the
Black), count of Anjou; Eudes, count of Blois, Chartres, and Tours;
Bouchard, count of Vent-Mine and Corbeil; Gautier, count of Vexin; and
Hugh, count of Maine. Few counts came from beyond the Loire; and some of
the lords in the North, amongst others Arnulf II., count of Flanders, and
the lords of Vermandois were likewise missing. “When those present were in
regular assembly, Archbishop Adalheron, with the assent of Duke Hugh, thus
spake unto them: ‘Louis, of blessed memory, having been taken from us
without leaving issue, it hath become necessary to engage seriously in
seeking who may take his place upon the throne, to the end that the common
weal remain not in peril, neglected and without a head. That is why on the
last occasion we deemed it useful to put off this matter, in order that
each of ye might come hither and submit to the assembly the opinion with
which God should have inspired him, and that from all those sentiments
might be drawn what is the general will. Here be we assembled: let us,
then, be guided by our wisdom and our good faith to act in such sort that
hatred stifle not reason, and affection distort not truth. We be not
ignorant that Charles hath his partisans, who maintain that he ought to
come to the throne transmitted to him by his relatives. But if we examine
this question, the throne is not acquired by hereditary right, and we be
bound to place at the head of the kingdom none but him who not only hath
the distinction of corporeal nobility, but hath also honor to recommend
him and magnanimity to rest upon. We read in the annals that to emperors
of illustrious race, whom their own laches caused to fall from power,
succeeded others, at one time similar, at another different; but what
dignity could we confer on Charles, who hath not honor for his guide, who
is enfeebled by lethargy, and who, finally, hath lost head so far that he
hath no shame in serving a foreign king, and in misuniting himself to a
woman taken from the rank of the knights his vassals? How could the
puissant duke brook that a woman issuing from a family of his vassals
should become queen, and have dominion over him? How could he walk behind
her whose equals and even superiors bend the knee before him and place
their hands beneath his feet? Examine carefully into the matter, and
consider that Charles hath been rejected more through his own fault than
that of others. Decide ye rather for the good than the ill of the common
weal. If ye wish it ill, make Charles sovereign; if ye hold to its
prosperity, crown Hugh, the illustrious duke. Let attachment to Charles
seduce nobody, and let hatred towards the duke distract nobody, from the
common interest. . . . Give us then, for our head, the duke, who has
deeds, nobility, and troops to recommend him; the duke, in whom ye will
find a defender not only of the common weal, but also of your private
interests. Thanks to his benevolence, ye will have in him a father. Who
hath had recourse to him and hath not found protection? Who, that hath
been torn from the care of home, hath not been restored thereto by him?’
“This opinion having been proclaimed and well received, Duke Hugh was
unanimously raised to the throne, crowned on the 1st of July by the
metropolitan and the other bishops, and recognized as king by the Gauls,
the Britons, the Normans, the Aquitanians, the Goths, the Spaniards, and
the Gascons. Surrounded by the grandees of the kingdom, he passed decrees
and promulgated laws according to royal custom, regulating successfully
and disposing of all matters. That he might deserve so much good fortune,
and under the inspiration of so many prosperous circumstances, he gave
himself up to deep piety. Wishing to have a certainty of leaving, after
his death, an heir to the throne, he conferred with his grandees, and
after holding council with them he first sent a deputation to the
metropolitan of Rheims, who was then at Orleans, and subsequently went
himself to see him touching the association of his son Robert with himself
upon the throne. The archbishop having told him that two kings could not
be, regularly, created in one and the same year, he immediately showed a
letter sent by Borel, duke of inner Spain, proving that that duke
requested help against the barbarians. . . . The metropolitan, seeing
advantage was likely to result, ultimately yielded to the king’s reasons;
and when the grandees were assembled, at the festival of our Lord’s
nativity, to celebrate the coronation, Hugh assumed the purple, and he
crowned solemnly, in the basilica of Sainte- Croix, his son Robert, amidst
the acclamations of the French.”
Thus was founded the dynasty of the Capetians, under the double influence
of German manners and feudal connections. Amongst the ancient Germans
royal heirship was generally confined to one and the same family; but
election was often joined with heirship, and had more than once thrust the
latter aside. Hugh Capet was head of the family which was the most
illustrious in his time and closest to the throne, on which the personal
merits of Counts Eudes and Robert had already twice seated it. He was also
one of the greatest chieftains of feudal society, duke of the country
which was already called France, and count of Paris—of that city
which Clovis, after his victories, had chosen as the centre of his
dominions. In view of the Roman rather than Germanic pretensions of the
Carlovingian heirs and of their admitted decay, the rise of Hugh Capet was
the natural consequence of the principal facts as well as of the manners
of the period, and the crowning manifestation of the new social condition
in France, that is, feudalism. Accordingly the event reached completion
and confirmation without any great obstacle. The Carlovingian, Charles of
Lorraine, vainly attempted to assert his rights; but after some gleams of
success, he died in 992, and his descendants fell, if not into obscurity,
at least into political insignificance. In vain, again, did certain feudal
lords, especially in Southern France, refuse for some time their adhesion
to Hugh Capet. One of them, Adalbert, count of Perigord, has remained
almost famous for having made to Hugh Capet’s question, “Who made thee
count?” the proud answer, “Who made thee king?” The pride, however, of
Count Adalbert had more bark than bite. Hugh possessed that intelligent
and patient moderation, which, when a position is once acquired, is the
best pledge of continuance. Several facts indicate that he did not
underestimate the worth and range of his title of king. At the same time
that by getting his son Robert crowned with him he secured for his line
the next succession, he also performed several acts which went beyond the
limits of his feudal domains, and proclaimed to all the kingdom the
presence of the king. But those acts were temperate and wise; and they
paved the way for the future without anticipating it. Hugh Capet confined
himself carefully to the sphere of his recognized rights as well as of his
effective strength, and his government remained faithful to the character
of the revolution which had raised him to the throne, at the same time
that it gave warning of the future progress of royalty independently of
and over the head of feudalism. When he died, on the 24th of October, 996,
the crown, which he hesitated, they say, to wear on his own head, passed
without obstacle to his son Robert, and the course which was to be
followed for eight centuries, under the government of his descendants, by
civilization in France, began to develop itself.
It has already been pointed out, in the case of Adalberon, archbishop of
Rheims, what part was taken by the clergy in this second change of
dynasty; but the part played by it was so important and novel that we must
make a somewhat more detailed acquaintance with the real character of it
and the principal actor in it. When, in 751, Pepin the Short became king
in the place of the last Merovingian, it was, as we have seen, Pope
Zachary who decided that “it was better to give the title of king to him
who really exercised the sovereign power than to him who bore only its
name.” Three years later, in 754, it was Pope Stephen II. who came over to
France to anoint King Pepin, and, forty-six years afterwards, in 800, it
was Pope Leo III. who proclaimed Charlemagne emperor of the West. From the
Papacy, then, on the accession of the Carlovingians, came the principal
decisions and steps. The reciprocal services rendered one to the other by
the two powers, and still more, perhaps, the similarity of their maxims as
to the unity of the empire, established between the Papacy and the
Carlovingians strong ties of gratitude and policy; and, accordingly, when
the Carlovingian dynasty was in danger, the court of Rome was grieved and
troubled; it was hard for her to see the fall of a dynasty for which she
had done so much and which had done so much for her. Far, then, from
aiding the accession of the new dynasty, she showed herself favorable to
the old, and tried to save it without herself becoming too deeply
compromised. Such was, from 985 to 996, the attitude of Pope John XVI., at
the crisis which placed Hugh Capet upon the throne. In spite of this
policy on the part of the Papacy, the French Church took the initiative in
the event, and supported the new king; the Archbishop of Rheims affirmed
the right of the people to accomplish a change of dynasty, and anointed
Hugh Capet and his son Robert. The accession of the Capetians was a work
independent of all foreign influence, and strictly national, in Church as
well as in State.
The authority of Adalberon was of great weight in the matter. As
archbishop he was full of zeal, and at the same time of wisdom in
ecclesiastical administration. Engaging in politics, he showed boldness in
attempting a great change in the state, and ability in carrying it out
without precipitation as well as without hesitation. He had for his
secretary and teacher a simple priest of Auvergne, who exercised over this
enterprise an influence more continuous and still more effectual than that
of his archbishop. Gerbert, born at Aurillac, and brought up in the
monastery of St. Geraud, had, when he was summoned to the directorate of
the school of Rheims, already made a trip to Spain, visited Rome, and won
the esteem of Pope John XIII. and of the Emperor Otho II., and had thus
had a close view of the great personages and great questions,
ecclesiastical and secular, of his time. On his establishment at Rheims,
he pursued a double course with a double end: he was fond of study,
science, and the investigation of truth, but he had also a taste for the
sphere of politics and of the world; he excelled in the art of
instructing, but also in the art of pleasing; and the address of the
courtier was in him united with the learning of the doctor. His was a mind
lofty, broad, searching, prolific, open to conviction, and yet inclined to
give way, either from calculation or attraction, to contrary ideas, but
certain to recur, under favorable circumstances, to its original purpose.
There was in him almost as much changeableness as zeal for the cause he
embraced. He espoused and energetically supported the elevation of a new
dynasty and the independence of the Roman Church. He was very active in
the cause of Hugh Capet; but he was more than once on the point of going
over to King Lothaire or to the pretender Charles of Lorraine. He was in
his time, even more resolutely than Bossuet in the seventeenth century,
the defender and practiser of what have since been called the liberties of
the Gallican Church, and in 992 he became, on this ground, Archbishop of
Rheims; but, after having been interdicted, in 995, by Pope John XVI.,
from the exercise of his episcopal functions in France, he obtained, in
998, from Pope Gregory V., the archbishopric of Ravenna in Italy, and the
favor of Otho III. was not unconnected, in 999, with his elevation to the
Holy See, which he occupied for four years, with the title of Sylvester
II., whilst putting in practice, but with moderation and dignity, maxims
very different from those which he had supported, fifteen years before, as
a French bishop. He became, at this later period of his life, so much the
more estranged from France in that he was embroiled with Hugh Capet’s son
and successor, King Robert, whose quondam preceptor he had been and of
whose marriage with Queen Bertha, widow of Eudes, count of Blois, he had
honestly disapproved.
In 995, just when he had been interdicted by Pope John X VI. from his
functions as Archbishop of Rheims, Gerbert wrote to the abbot and brethren
of the monastery of St. Geraud, where he had been brought up, “And now
farewell to your holy community; farewell to those whom I knew in old
times, or who were connected with me by blood, if there still survive any
whose names, if not their features, have remained upon my memory. Not that
I have forgotten them through pride; but I am broken down, and—if it
must be said—changed by the ferocity of barbarians; what I learned
in my boyhood I forgot in my youth; what I desired in my youth, I despised
in my old age. Such are the fruits thou hast borne for me, O pleasure!
Such are the joys afforded by the honors of the world! Believe my
experience of it: the higher the great are outwardly raised by glory, the
more cruel is their inward anguish!”
Length of life brings, in the soul of the ambitious, days of hearty
undeception; but it does not discourage them from their course of
ambition. Gerbert was, amongst the ambitious, at the same time one of the
most exalted in point of intellect and one of the most persistent as well
as restless in attachment to the affairs of the world.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CAPETIANS TO THE TIME OF THE CRUSADES.
From 996 to 1108, the first three successors of Hugh Capet, his son
Robert, his grandson Henry I., and his great-grandson Philip I., sat upon
the throne of France; and during this long space of one hundred and twelve
years the kingdom of France had not, sooth to say, any history. Parcelled
out, by virtue of the feudal system, between a multitude of princes,
independent, isolated, and scarcely sovereigns in their own dominions,
keeping up anything like frequent intercourse only with their neighbors,
and loosely united, by certain rules or customs of vassalage, to him
amongst them who bore the title of king, the France of the eleventh
century existed in little more than name: Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy,
Aquitaine, Poitou, Anjou, Flanders, and Nivernais were the real states and
peoples, each with its own distinct life and history. One single event,
the Crusade, united, towards the end of the century, those scattered
sovereigns and peoples in one common idea and one combined action. Up to
that point, then, let us conform to the real state of the case, and
faithfully trace out the features of the epoch, without attempting to
introduce a connection and a combination which did not exist; and let us
pass briefly in review the isolated events and personages which are still
worthy of remembrance, and which have remained historic without having
belonged exactly to a national history. Amongst events of this kind, one,
the conquest of England, in 1066, by William the Bastard, duke of
Normandy, was so striking, and exercised so much influence over the
destinies of France, that, in the incoherent and disconnected picture of
this eleventh century, particular attention must first be drawn to the
consequences, as regarded France, of that great Norman enterprise.
After the sagacious Hugh Capet, the first three Capetians, Robert, Henry
I., and Philip I., were very mediocre individuals, in character as well as
intellect; and their personal insignificance was one of the causes that
produced the emptiness of French history under their sway. Robert lacked
neither physical advantages nor moral virtues: “He had a lofty figure,”
says his biographer Helgaud, archbishop of Bourgcs, “hair smooth and well
arranged, a modest eye, a pleasant and gentle mouth, a tolerably furnished
beard, and high shoulders. He was versed in all the sciences, philosopher
enough and an excellent musician, and so devoted to sacred literature that
he never passed a day without reading the Psalter and praying to the Most
High God together with St. David.” He composed several hymns which were
adopted by the Church, and, during a pilgrimage he made to Rome, he
deposited upon the altar of St. Peter his own Latin poems set to music.
“He often went to the church of St. Denis, clad in his royal robes and
with his crown on his head; and he there conducted the singing at matins,
mass, and vespers, chanting with the monks and himself calling upon them
to sing. When he sat in the consistory, he voluntarily styled himself the
bishops’ client.” Two centuries later, St. Louis proved that the virtues
of the saint are not incompatible with the qualities of the king; but the
former cannot form a substitute for the latter, and the qualities of king
were to seek in Robert. He was neither warrior nor politician; there is no
sign that he ever gathered about him, to discuss affairs of state, the
laic barons together with the bishops, and when he interfered in the wars
of the great feudal lords, notably in Burgundy and Flanders, it was with
but little energy and to but little purpose. He was hardly more potent in
his family than in his kingdom. It has already been mentioned that, in
spite of his preceptor Gerbert’s advice, he had espoused Bertha, widow of
Eudes, count of Blois, and he loved her dearly; but the marriage was
assailed by the Church, on the ground of kinship. Robert offered
resistance, but afterwards gave way before the excommunication pronounced
by Pope Gregory V., and then espoused Constance daughter of William
Taillefer, count of Toulouse; and forth-with, says the chronicler Raoul
Glaber, “were seen pouring into France and Burgundy, because of this
queen, the most vain and most frivolous of all men, coming from Aquitaine
and Auvergne. They were outlandish and outrageous equally in their manners
and their dress, in their arms and the appointments of their horses; their
hair came only half way down their head; they shaved their beards like
actors; they wore boots and shoes that were not decent; and, lastly,
neither fidelity nor security was to be looked for in any of their ties.
Alack! that nation of Franks, which was wont to be the most virtuous, and
even the people of Burgundy, too, were eager to follow these criminal
examples, and before long they reflected only too faithfully the depravity
and infamy of their models.” The evil amounted to something graver than a
disturbance of court-fashions. Robert had by Constance three sons, Hugh,
Henry, and Robert. First the eldest, and afterwards his two brothers,
maddened by the bad character and tyrannical exactions of their mother,
left the palace, and withdrew to Dreux and Burgundy, abandoning
themselves, in the royal domains and the neighborhood, to all kinds of
depredations and excesses. Reconciliation was not without great difficulty
effected; and, indeed, peace was never really restored in the royal
family. Peace was everywhere the wish and study of King Robert; but he
succeeded better in maintaining it with his neighbors than with his
children. In 1006, he was on the point of having a quarrel with Henry II.,
emperor of Germany, who was more active and enterprising, but fortunately
not less pious, than himself. The two sovereigns resolved to have an
interview at the Meuse, the boundary of their dominions. “The question
amongst their respective followings was, which of the two should cross the
river to seek audience on the other bank, that is, in the other’s
dominions; this would be a humiliation, it was said. The two learned
princes remembered this saying of Eclesiasticus: ‘The greater thou art,
the humbler be thou in all things.’ The emperor, therefore, rose up early
in the morning, and crossed, with some of his people, into the French
king’s territory. They embraced with cordiality; the bishops, as was
proper, celebrated the sacrament of the mass, and they afterwards sat down
to dinner. When the meal was over, King Robert offered Henry immense
presents of gold and silver and precious stones, and a hundred horses
richly caparisoned, each carrying a cuirass and a helmet; and he added
that all that the emperor did not accept of these gifts would be so much
deducted from their friendship. Henry, seeing the generosity of his
friend, took of the whole only a book containing the Holy Gospel, set with
gold and precious stones, and a golden amulet, wherein was a tooth of St.
Vincent, priest and martyr. The empress, likewise, accepted only two
golden cups. Next day, King Robert crossed with his bishops into the
territories of the emperor, who received him magnificently, and, after
dinner, offered him a hundred pounds of pure gold. The king, in his turn,
accepted only two golden cups; and, after having ratified their pact of
friendship, they returned each to his own dominions.”
Let us add to this summary of Robert’s reign some facts which are
characteristic of the epoch. In A.D. 1000, in consequence of the sense
attached to certain words in the Sacred Books, many Christians expected
the end of the world. The time of expectation was full of anxieties;
plagues, famines, and divers accidents which then took place in divers
quarters, were an additional aggravation; the churches were crowded;
penances, offerings, absolutions, all the forms of invocation and
repentance multiplied rapidly; a multitude of souls, in submission or
terror, prepared to appear before their Judge. And after what
catastrophes? In the midst of what gloom or of what light? These were
fearful questions, of which men’s imaginations were exhausted in
forestalling the solution. When the last day of the tenth and the first of
the eleventh centuries were past, it was like a general regeneration; it
might have been said that time was beginning over again; and the work was
commenced of rendering the Christian world worthy of the future.
“Especially in Italy and in Gaul,” says the chronicler Raoul Glaber, “men
took in hand the reconstruction of the basilicas, although the greater
part had no need thereof. Christian peoples seemed to vie one with another
which should erect the most beautiful. It was as if the world, shaking
itself together and casting off its old garments, would have decked itself
with the white robes of Christ.” Christian art, in its earliest form of
the Gothic style, dates from this epoch; the power and riches of the
Christian Church, in its different institutions, received, at this crisis
of the human imagination, a fresh impulse.
Other facts, some lamentable and some salutary, began, about this epoch,
to assume in French history a place which was destined before long to
become an important one. Piles of fagots were set up, first at Orleans and
then at Toulouse, for the punishment of heretics. The heretics of the day
were Manicheans. King Robert and Queen Constance sanctioned by their
presence this return to human sacrifices offered to God as a penalty
inflicted on mental offenders against His word. At the same time a double
portion of ire blazed forth against the Jews. “What have we to do,” it was
said, “with going abroad to make war on Mussulmans? Have we not in the
very midst of us the greatest enemies of Jesus Christ?” Amongst Christians
acts of oppression and violence on the part of the great against the small
became so excessive and so frequent that they excited in country parts,
particularly in Normandy, insurrections which the insurgents tried to
organize into permanent resistance. “In several counties of Normandy,”
says William of Jumieges, “all the peasants, meeting in conventicles,
resolved to live according to their own wills and their own laws, not only
in the heart of the forests, but also on the borders of the rivers, and
without care for any established rights. To accomplish this design, these
mobs of madmen elected each two deputies, who were to form, at the central
point, an assembly charged with the execution of their decrees. So soon as
the duke (Richard II.) was informed thereof, he sent a large body of armed
men to suppress this audacity in the country parts, and to disperse this
rustic assembly. In execution of his orders, the deputies of the peasantry
and many other rebels were forthwith arrested; their feet and hands were
cut off, and they were sent home thus mutilated to deter their fellows
from such enterprises, and to render them more prudent, for fear of worse.
After this experience, the peasants gave up their meetings and returned to
their ploughs.”
This is a literal translation of the monkish chronicler, who was far from
favorable to the insurgent peasants, and was more for applauding the
suppression than justifying the insurrection. The suppression, though
undoubtedly effectual for the moment, and in the particular spots it
reached, produced no general or lasting effect. About a century after the
cold recital of William of Jumieges, a poet-chronicler, Robert Wace, in
his Romance of Rou, a history in verse of Rollo and the first dukes
of Normandy, related the same facts with far more sympathetic feeling and
poetical coloring. “The lords do us nought but ill,” he makes the Norman
peasants say; “with them we have nor gain nor profit from our labors;
every day is, for us, a day of suffering, toil, and weariness; every day
we have our cattle taken from us for road-work and forced service. We have
plaints and grievances, old and new exactions, pleas and processes without
end, money-pleas, market-pleas, road-pleas, forest-pleas, mill-pleas,
black-mail-pleas, watch-and-ward-pleas. There are so many provosts,
bailiffs, and sergeants, that we have not one hour’s peace; day by day
they run us down, seize our movables, and drive us from our lands. There
is no security for us against the lords; and no pact is binding with them.
Why suffer all this evil to be done to us and not get out of our plight?
Are we not men even as they are? Have we not the same stature, the same
limbs, the same strength—for suffering? All we need is courage. Let
us, then, bind ourselves together by an oath: let us swear to support one
another; and if they will make war on us, have we not, for one knight,
thirty or forty young peasants, nimble and ready to fight with club, with
boar-spear, with arrow, with axe, and even with stones if they have not
weapons? Let us learn to resist the knights, and we shall be free to cut
down trees, to hunt and fish after our fashion, and we shall work our will
in flood and field and wood.”
Here we have no longer the short account and severe estimate of an
indifferent spectator; it is the cry of popular rage and vengeance
reproduced by the lively imagination of an angered poet. Undoubtedly the
Norman peasants of the twelfth century did not speak of their miseries
with such descriptive ability and philosophical feeling as were lent to
them by Robert Wace; they did not meditate the democratic revolution of
which he attributes to them the idea and almost the plan; but the deeds of
violence and oppression against which they rose were very real, and they
exerted themselves to escape by reciprocal violence from intolerable
suffering. Thence date those alternations of demagogic revolt and
tyrannical suppression which have so often ensanguined the land and put in
peril the very foundations of social order. Insurrections became of so
atrocious a kind that the atrocious chastisements with which they were
visited seemed equally natural and necessary. It needed long ages, a
repetition of civil wars and terrible political shocks, to put an end to
this brutal chaos which gave birth to so many evils and reciprocal crimes,
and to bring about, amongst the different classes of the French
population, equitable and truly human relations.
So quick-spreading and contagious is evil amongst men, and so difficult to
extirpate in the name of justice and truth!
However, even in the midst of this cruel egotism and this gross unreason
of the tenth and eleventh centuries, the necessity, from a moral and
social point of view, of struggling against such disgusting
irregularities, made itself felt, and found zealous advocates. From this
epoch are to be dated the first efforts to establish, in different parts
of France, what was called God’s peace, God’s truce. The words were well
chosen for prohibiting at the same time oppression and revolt, for it
needed nothing less than law and the voice of God to put some restraint
upon the barbarous manners and passions of men, great or small, lord or
peasant. It is the peculiar and glorious characteristic of Christianity to
have so well understood the primitive and permanent evil in human nature
that it fought against all the great iniquities of mankind and exposed
them in principle, even when, in point of general practice, it neither
hoped nor attempted to sweep them away. Bishops, priests, and monks were,
in their personal lives and in the councils of the Church, the first
propagators of God’s peace or truce, and in more than one locality they
induced the laic lords to follow their lead. In 1164, Hugh II., count of
Rodez, in concert with his brother Hugh, bishop of Rodez, and the notables
of the district, established the peace in the diocese of Rodez; “and this
it is,” said the learned Benedictines of the eighteenth century, in the
Art of Verifying Dates, “which gave rise to the toll of commune paix
or pesade, which is still collected in Rouergue.” King Robert
always showed himself favorable to this pacific work; and he is the first
amongst the five kings of France, in other respects very different,—himself,
St. Louis, Louis XII, Henry IV., and Louis XVI.,— who were
particularly distinguished for sympathetic kindness and anxiety for the
popular welfare. Robert had a kindly feeling for the weak and poor; not
only did he protect them, on occasion, against the powerful, but he took
pains to conceal their defaults, and, in his church and at his table, he
suffered himself to be robbed without complaint, that he might not have to
denounce and punish the robbers. “Wherefore at his death,” says his
biographer Helgaud, “there were great mourning and intolerable grief; a
countless number of widows and orphans sorrowed for the many benefits
received from him; they did beat their breasts and went to and from his
tomb, crying, ‘Whilst Robert was king and ordered all, we lived in peace,
we had nought to fear. May the soul of that pious father, that father of
the senate, that father of all good, be blest and saved! May it mount up
and dwell forever with Jesus Christ, the King of kings!”
Though not so pious or so good as Robert, his son, Henry I., and his
grandson, Philip I., were neither more energetic nor more glorious kings.
During their long reigns (the former from 1031 to 1060, and the latter
from 1060 to 1108) no important and well-prosecuted design distinguished
their government. Their public life was passed at one time in petty
warfare, without decisive results, against such and such vassals; at
another in acts of capricious intervention in the quarrels of their
vassals amongst themselves. Their home-life was neither less irregular nor
conducted with more wisdom and regard for the public interest. King Robert
had not succeeded in keeping his first wife, Bertha of Burgundy; and his
second, Constance of Aquitaine, with her imperious, malevolent,
avaricious, meddlesome disposition, reduced him to so abject a state that
he never gave a gratuity to any of his servants without saying, “Take care
that Constance know nought of it.” After Robert’s death, Constance, having
become regent for her eldest son, Henry I., forthwith conspired to
dethrone him, and to put in his place her second son, Robert, who was her
favorite. Henry, on being delivered by his mother’s death from her tyranny
and intrigues, was thrice married; but his first two marriages with two
German princesses, one the daughter of the Emperor Conrad the Salic, the
other of the Emperor Henry III., were so far from happy that in 1051 he
sent into Russia, to Kieff, in search of his third wife, Anne, daughter of
the Czar Yaroslaff the Halt. She was a modest creature who lived quietly
up to the death of her husband in 1060, and, two years afterwards, in the
reign of her son Philip I., rather than return to her own country, married
Raoul, count of Valois, who put away, to marry her, his second wife,
Haqueney, called Eleonore. The divorce was opposed at Rome before Pope
Alexander II., to whom the archbishop of Rheims wrote upon the subject,
“Our kingdom is the scene of great troubles. The queen-mother has espoused
Count Raoul, which has mightily displeased the king. As for the lady whom
Raoul has put away, we have recognized the justice of the complaints she
has preferred before you, and the falsity of the pre-texts on which he put
her away.” The Pope ordered the count to take back his wife; Raoul would
not obey, and was excommunicated; but he made light of it, and the
Princess Anne of Russia, actually reconciled, apparently, to Philip I.,
lived tranquilly in France, where, in 1075, shortly after the death of her
second husband, Count Raoul her signature was still attached to a charter
side by side with that of the king her son.
The marriages of Philip I. brought even more trouble and scandal than
those of his father and grandfather. At nineteen years of age, in 1072, he
had espoused Bertha, daughter of Florent I., count of Holland, and in 1078
he had by her the son who was destined to succeed him with the title of
Louis the Fat. But twenty years later, 1092, Philip took a dislike to his
wife, put her away and banished her to Montreuil-sur-Mer, on the ground of
prohibited consanguinity. He had conceived, there is no knowing when, a
violent passion for a woman celebrated for her beauty, Bertrade, the
fourth wife, for three years past, of Foulques le Roehin (the brawler),
count of Anjou. Philip, having thus packed off Bertha, set out for Tours,
where Bertrade happened to be with her husband. There, in the church of
St. John, during the benediction of the baptismal fonts, they entered into
mutual engagements. Philip went away again; and, a few days afterwards,
Bertrade was carried off by some people he had left in the neighborhood of
Tours, and joined him at Orleans. Nearly all the bishops of France, and
amongst others the most learned and respected of them, Yves, bishop of
Chartres, refused their benediction to this shocking marriage; and the
king had great difficulty in finding a priest to render him that service.
Then commenced between Philip and the heads of the Catholic Church, Pope
and bishops, a struggle which, with negotiation upon negotiation and
excommunication upon excommunication, lasted twelve years, without the
king’s being able to get his marriage canonically recognized; and, though
he promised to send away Bertrade, he was not content with merely keeping
her with him, but he openly jeered at excommunication and interdicts. “It
was the custom,” says William of Malmesbury, “at the places where the king
sojourned, for divine service to be stopped; and, as soon as he was moving
away, all the bells began to peal. And then Philip would cry, as he
laughed like one beside himself, ‘Dost hear, my love, how they are ringing
us out?’” At last, in 1104, the Bishop of Chartres himself, wearied by the
persistency of the king and by sight of the trouble in which the
prolongation of the interdict was plunging the kingdom, wrote to the Pope,
Pascal II., “I do not presume to offer you advice; I only desire to warn
you that it were well to show for a while some condescension towards the
weaknesses of the man, so far as consideration for his salvation may
permit, and to rescue the country from the critical state to which it is
reduced by the excommunication of this prince.” The Pope, consequently,
sent instructions to the bishops of the realm; and they, at the king’s
summons, met at Paris on the 1st of December, 1104. One of them, Lambert,
bishop of Arras, wrote to the Pope, “We sent as a deputation to the king
the bishops John of Orleans and Galon of Paris, charged to demand of him
whether he would conform to the clauses and conditions set forth in your
letters, and whether he were determined to give up the unlawful
intercourse which had made him guilty before God. The king, having
answered, without being disconcerted, that he was ready to make atonement
to God and the holy Roman Church, was introduced to the assembly. He came
barefooted, in a posture of devotion and humility, confessing his sin and
promising to purge him of his excommunication by expiatory deeds. And
thus, by your authority, he earned absolution. Then laying his hand on the
book of the holy Gospels, he took an oath, in the following terms, to
renounce his guilty and unlawful marriage: ‘Hearken, thou Lambert, bishop
of Arras, who art here in place of the Apostolic Pontiff; and let the
archbishops and bishops here present hearken unto me. I, Philip, king of
the French, do promise not to go back to my sin, and to break off wholly
the criminal intercourse I have heretofore kept up with Bertrade. I do
promise that henceforth I will have with her no intercourse or
companionship, save in the presence of persons beyond suspicion. I will
observe, faithfully and without turning aside, these promises, in the
sense set forth in the letters of the Pope, and as ye understand. So help
me God and these holy Gospels!’ Bertrade, at the moment of her release
from excommunication, took in person the same oath on the holy Gospels.”
According to the statement of the learned Benedictines who studiously
examined into this incident, it is doubtful whether Philip I. broke off
all intercourse with Bertrade. “Two years after his absolution, on the
10th of October, 1106, he arrived at Angers, on a Wednesday,” says a
contemporary chronicler, “accompanied by the queen named Bertrade, and was
there received by Count Foulques and by all the Angevines, cleric and
laic, with great honors. The day after his arrival, on Thursday, the monks
of St. Nicholas, introduced by the queen, presented themselves before the
king, and humbly prayed him, in concert with the queen, to countenance,
for the salvation of his soul and of the queen and his relatives and
friends, all acquisitions made by them in his dominions, or that they
might hereafter make, by gift or purchase, and to be pleased to place his
seal on their titles to property. And the king granted their request.”
The most complete amongst the chroniclers of the time, Orderic Vital,
says, touching this meeting at Angers of Bertrade’s two husbands, “This
clever woman had, by her skilful management, so perfectly reconciled these
two rivals, that she made them a splendid feast, got them both to sit at
the same table, had their beds prepared, the ensuing night, in the same
chamber, and ministered to them according to their pleasure.” The most
judicious of the historians and statesmen of the twelfth century, the Abby
Suger, that faithful minister of Louis the Fat, who cannot be suspected of
favoring Bertrade, expresses himself about her in these terms: “This
sprightly and rarely accomplished woman, well versed in the art, familiar
to her sex, of holding captive the husbands they have outraged, had
acquired such an empire over her first husband, the count of Anjou, in
spite of the affront she had put upon him by deserting him, that he
treated her with homage as his sovereign, often sat upon a stool at her
feet, and obeyed her wishes by a sort of enchantment.”
These details are textually given as the best representation of the place
occupied, in the history of that time, by the morals and private life of
the kings. It would not be right, however, to draw therefrom conclusions
as to the abasement of Capetian royalty in the eleventh century, with too
great severity. There are irregularities and scandals which the great
qualities and the personal glory of princes may cause to be not only
excused but even forgotten, though certainly the three Capetians who
immediately succeeded the founder of the dynasty offered their people no
such compensation; but it must not be supposed that they had fallen into
the plight of the sluggard Merovingians or the last Carlovingians,
wandering almost without a refuge. A profound change had come over society
and royalty in France. In spite of their political mediocrity and their
indolent licentiousness, Robert, Henry I., and Philip I., were not, in the
eleventh century, insignificant personages, without authority or practical
influence, whom their contemporaries could leave out of the account; they
were great lords, proprietors of vast domains wherein they exercised over
the population an almost absolute power; they had, it is true, about them,
rivals, large proprietors and almost absolute sovereigns, like themselves,
sometimes stronger even, materially, than themselves and more energetic or
more intellectually able, whose superiors, however, they remained on two
grounds—as suzerains and as kings: their court was always the most
honored and their alliance always very much sought after. They occupied
the first rank in feudal society and a rank unique in the body politic
such as it was slowly becoming in the midst of reminiscences and
traditions of the Jewish monarchy, of barbaric kingship, and of the Roman
empire for a while resuscitated by Charlemagne. French kingship in the
eleventh century was sole power invested with a triple character—Germanic,
Roman, and religious; its possessors were at the same time the chieftains
of the conquerors of the soil, the successors of the Roman emperors and of
Charlemagne, and the laic delegates and representatives of the God of the
Christians. Whatever were their weaknesses and their personal
short-comings, they were not the mere titularies of a power in decay, and
the kingly post was strong and full of blossoms, as events were not slow
to demonstrate.
And as with the kingship, so with the community of France in the eleventh
century. In spite of its dislocation into petty incoherent and turbulent
associations, it was by no means in decay. Irregularities of ambition,
hatreds and quarrels amongst neighbors and relatives, outrages on the part
of princes and peoples were incessantly renewed; but energy of character,
activity of mind, indomitable will and zeal for the liberty of the
individual were not wanting, and they exhibited themselves passionately
and at any risk, at one time by brutal and cynical outbursts which were
followed occasionally by fervent repentance and expiation, at another by
acts of courageous wisdom and disinterested piety. At the commencement of
the eleventh century, William III., count of Poitiers and duke of
Aquitaine, was one of the most honored and most potent princes of his
time; all the sovereigns of Europe sent embassies to him as to their peer;
he every year made, by way of devotion, a trip to Rome, and was received
there with the same honors as the emperor. He was fond of literature, and
gave up to reading the early hours of the night; and scholars called him
another Maecenas. Unaffected by these worldly successes intermingled with
so much toil and so many miscalculations, he refused the crown of Italy,
when it was offered him at the death of the Emperor Henry II., and he
finished, like Charles V. some centuries later, by going and seeking in a
monastery isolation from the world and repose. But, in the same domains
and at the end of the same century, his grandson William VII. was the most
vagabondish, dissolute, and violent of princes; and his morals were so
scandalous that the bishop of Poitiers, after having warned him to no
purpose, considered himself forced to excommunicate him. The duke suddenly
burst into the church, made his way through the congregation, sword in
hand, and seized the prelate by the hair, saying, “Thou shalt give me
absolution or die.” The bishop demanded a moment for reflection, profited
by it to pronounce the form of excommunication, and forthwith bowing his
head before the duke, said, “And now strike!” “I love thee not well enough
to send thee to paradise,” answered the duke; and he confined himself to
depriving him of his see. For fury the duke of Aquitaine sometimes
substituted insolent mockery. Another bishop, of Angouleme, who was quite
bald, likewise exhorted him to mend his ways. “I will mend,” quoth the
duke, “when thou shalt comb back thy hair to thy pate.” Another great lord
of the same century, Foulques the Black, count of Anjou, at the close of
an able and glorious lifetime, had resigned to his son Geoffrey Martel the
administration of his countship. The son, as haughty and harsh towards his
father as towards his subjects, took up arms against him, and bade him lay
aside the outward signs, which he still maintained, of power. The old man
in his wrath recovered the vigor and ability of his youth, and strove so
energetically and successfully against his son that he reduced him to such
subjection as to make him do several miles “crawling on the ground,” says
the chronicle, with a saddle on his back, and to come and prostrate
himself at his feet. When Foulques had his son thus humbled before him, he
spurned him with his foot, repeating over and over again nothing but
“Thou’rt beaten, thou’rt beaten!” “Ay, beaten,” said Geoffrey, “but by
thee only, because thou art my father; to any other I am invincible.” The
anger of the old man vanished at once: he now thought only how he might
console his son for the affront put upon him, and he gave him back his
power, exhorting him only to conduct himself with more moderation and
gentleness towards his subjects. All was inconsistency and contrast with
these robust, rough, hasty souls; they cared little for belying themselves
when they had satisfied the passion of the moment.
The relations existing between the two great powers of the period, the
laic lords and the monks, were not less bitter or less unstable than
amongst the laics themselves; and when artifice, as often happened, was
employed, it was by no means to the exclusion of violence. About the
middle of the twelfth century, the abbey of Tournus, in Burgundy, had, at
Louhans, a little port where it collected salt-tax, whereof it every year
distributed the receipts to the poor during the first week in Lent.
Girard, count of Macon, established a like toll a little distance off. The
monks of Tournus complained; but he took no notice. A long while
afterwards he came to Tournus with a splendid following, and entered the
church of St. Philibert. He had stopped all alone before the altar to say
his prayers, when a monk, cross in hand, issued suddenly from behind the
altar, and, placing himself before the count, “How hast thou the
audacity,” said he, “to enter my monastery and mine house, thou that dost
not hesitate to rob me of my dues?” and, taking Girard by the hair, he
threw him on the ground and belabored him heavily. The count, stupefied
and contrite, acknowledged his injustice, took off the toll that he had
wrongfully put on, and, not content with this reparation, sent to the
church of Tournus a rich carpet of golden and silken tissue. In the middle
of the eleventh century, Adhemar II., viscount of Limoges, had in his city
a quarrel of quite a different sort with the monks of the abbey of St.
Martial. The abbey had fallen into great looseness of discipline and
morals; and the viscount had at heart its reformation. To this end he
entered into concert, at a distance, with Hugh, abbot of Cluni, at that
time the most celebrated and most respected of the monasteries. The abbot
of St. Martial died. Adhemar sent for some monks from Cluni to come to
Limoges, lodged them secretly near his palace, repaired to the abbey of
St. Martial after having had the chapter convoked, and called upon the
monks to proceed at once to the election of a new abbot. A lively
discussion, upon this point, arose between the viscount and the monks. “We
are not ignorant,” said one of them to him, “that you have sent for
brethren from Cluni, in order to drive us out and put them in our places;
but you will not succeed.” The viscount was furious, seized by the sleeve
the monk who was inveighing, and dragged him by force out of the
monastery. His fellows were frightened, and took to flight; and Adhemar
immediately had the monks from Cluni sent for, and put them in possession
of the abbey. It was a ruffianly proceeding; but the reform was popular in
Limoges and was effected.
These trifling matters are faithful samples of the dominant and
fundamental characteristic of French society during the tenth, eleventh,
and twelfth centuries, the true epoch of the middle ages. It was chaos,
and fermentation within the chaos the slow and rough but powerful and
productive fermentation of unruly life. In ideas, events, and persons
there was a blending of the strongest contrasts: manners were rude and
even savage, yet souls were filled with lofty and tender aspirations; the
authority of religious creeds at one time was on the point of extinction,
yet at another shone forth gloriously in opposition to the arrogance and
brutality of mundane passions; ignorance was profound, and yet here and
there, in the very heart of the mental darkness, gleamed bright centres of
movement and intellectual labor. It was the period when Abelard,
anticipating freedom of thought and of instruction, drew together upon
Mount St. Genevieve thousands of hearers anxious to follow him in the
study of the great problems of Nature and of the destiny of man and the
world. And far away from this throng, in the solitude of the abbey of Bee,
St. Anselm was offering to his monks a Christian and philosophical
demonstration of the existence of God—“faith seeking understanding”
(fides quoerens intellectuan), as he himself used to say. It was the
period, too, when, distressed at the licentiousness which was spreading
throughout the Church as well as lay society, two illustrious monks, St.
Bernard and St. Norbert, not only went preaching everywhere reformation of
morals, but labored at and succeeded in establishing for monastic life a
system of strict discipline and severe austerity. Lastly, it was the
period when, in the laic world, was created and developed the most
splendid fact of the middle ages, knighthood, that noble soaring of
imaginations and souls towards the ideal of Christian virtue and soldierly
honor. It is impossible to trace in detail the origin and history of that
grand fact which was so prominent in the days to which it belonged, and
which is so prominent still in the memories of men; but a clear notion
ought to be obtained of its moral character and its practical worth. To
this end a few pages shall be borrowed from Guizot’s History of
Civilization in France. Let us first look on at the admission of a
knight, such as took place in the twelfth century. We will afterwards see
what rules of conduct were imposed upon him, not only according to the
oaths which he had to take on becoming knight, but according to the idea
formed of knighthood by the poets of the day, those interpreters not only
of actual life, but of men’s sentiments also. We shall then understand,
without difficulty, what influence must have been exercised, in the souls
and lives of men, by such sentiments and such rules, however great may
have been the discrepancy between the knightly ideal and the general
actions and passions of contemporaries.
“The young man, the esquire who aspired to the title of knight, was first
stripped of his clothes and placed in a bath, which was symbolical of
purification. On leaving the bath, he was clothed in a white tunic, which
was symbolical of purity, and a red robe, which was symbolical of the
blood he was bound to shed in the service of the faith, and a black sagum
or close-fitting coat, which was symbolical of the death which awaited him
as well as all men.
“Thus purified and clothed, the candidate observed for four and twenty
hours a strict fast. When evening came, he entered church, and there
passed the night in prayer, sometimes alone, sometimes with a priest and
sponsors, who prayed with him. Next day, his first act was confession;
after confession the priest gave him the communion; after the communion he
attended a mass of the Holy Spirit; and, generally, a sermon touching the
duties of knights and of the new life he was about to enter on. The sermon
over, the candidate advanced to the altar with the knight’s sword hanging
from his neck. This the priest took off, blessed, and replaced upon his
neck. The candidate then went and knelt before the lord who was to arm him
knight. ‘To what purpose,’ the lord asked him, ‘do you desire to enter the
order? If to be rich, to take your ease and be held in honor without doing
honor to knighthood, you are unworthy of it, and would be, to the order of
knighthood you received, what the simoniacal clerk is to the prelacy.’ On
the young man’s reply, promising to acquit himself well of the duties of
knight, the lord granted his request.
“Then drew near knights and sometimes ladies to reclothe the candidate in
all his new array; and they put on him, 1, the spurs; 2, the hauberk or
coat of mail; 3, the cuirass; 4, the armlets and gauntlets; 5, the sword.
“He was what was then called adubbed (that is, adopted, according to Du
Cange). The lord rose up, went to him and gave him the accolade or
accolee, three blows with the flat of the sword on the shoulder or nape of
the neck, and sometimes a slap with the palm of the hand on the cheek,
saying, ‘In the name of God, St. Michael and St. George, I make thee
knight.’ And he sometimes added, ‘Be valiant, bold, and loyal.’
“The young man, having been thus armed knight, had his helmet brought to
him; a horse was led up for him; he leaped on its back, generally without
the help of the stirrups, and caracoled about, brandishing his lance and
making his sword flash. Finally he went out of church and caracoled about
on the open, at the foot of the castle, in presence of the people eager to
have their share in the spectacle.”
Such was what may be called the outward and material part in the admission
of knights. It shows a persistent anxiety to associate religion with all
the phases of so personal an affair; the sacraments, the most august
feature of Christianity, are mixed up with it; and many of the ceremonies
are, as far as possible, assimilated to the administration of the
sacraments. Let us continue our examination; let us penetrate to the very
heart of knighthood, its moral character, its ideas, the sentiments which
it was the object to impress upon the knight. Here again the influence of
religion will be quite evident.
“The knight had to swear to twenty-six articles. These articles, however,
did not make one single formula, drawn up at one and the same time and all
together; they are a collection of oaths required of knights at different
epochs and in more or less complete fashion from the eleventh to the
fourteenth century. The candidate swore, 1, to fear, reverence, and serve
God religiously, to fight for the faith with all their might, and to die a
thousand deaths rather than ever renounce Christianity; 2, to serve their
sovereign-prince faithfully, and to fight for him and fatherland right
valiantly; 3, to uphold the rights of the weaker, such as widows, orphans,
and damsels, in fair quarrel, exposing themselves on that account
according as need might be, provided it were not against their own honor
or against their king or lawful prince; 4, that they would not injure any
one maliciously, or take what was another’s, but would rather do battle
with those who did so; 5, that greed, pay, gain, or profit should never
constrain them to do any deed, but only glory and virtue; 6, that they
would fight for the good and advantage of the common weal; 7, that they
would be bound by and obey the orders of their generals and captains who
had a right to command them; 8, that they would guard the honor, rank, and
order of their comrades, and that they would neither by arrogance nor by
force commit any trespass against any one of them; 9, that they would
never fight in companies against one, and that they would eschew all
tricks and artifices; 10, that they would wear but one sword, unless they
had to fight against two or more; 11, that in tourney or other sportive
contest they would never use the point of their swords; 12, that being
taken prisoner in a tourney, they would be bound, on their faith and
honor, to perform in every point the conditions of capture, besides being
bound to give up to the victors their arms and horses, if it seemed good
to take them, and being disabled from fighting in war or elsewhere without
their leave; 13, that they would keep faith inviolably with all the world,
and especially with their comrades, upholding their honor and advantage,
wholly, in their absence; 14, that they would love and honor one another,
and aid and succor one another whenever occasion offered; 15, that, having
made vow or promise to go on any quest or novel adventure, they would
never put off their arms, save for the night’s rest; 16, that in pursuit
of their quest or adventure they would not shun bad and perilous passes,
nor turn aside from the straight road for fear of encountering powerful
knights or monsters or wild beasts or other hinderance such as the body
and courage of a single man might tackle; 17, that they would never take
wage or pay from any foreign prince; 18, that in command of troops of
men-at-arms, they would live in the utmost possible order and discipline,
and especially in their own country, where they would never suffer any
harm or violence to be done; 19, that if they were bound to escort dame or
damsel, they would serve her, protect her, and save her from all danger
and insult, or die in the attempt; 20, that they would never offer
violence to dame or damsel, though they had won her by deeds of arms,
against her will and consent; 21, that, being challenged to equal combat,
they would not refuse, without wound, sickness, or other reasonable
hinderance; 22, that, having undertaken to carry out any enterprise, they
would devote to it night and day, unless they were called away for the
service of their king and country; 23, that if they made a vow to acquire
any honor, they would not draw back without having attained either it or
its equivalent; 24, that they would be faithful keepers of their word and
pledged faith, and that, having become prisoners in fair warfare, they
would pay to the uttermost the promised ransom, or return to prison, at
the day and hour agreed upon, on pain of being proclaimed infamous and
perjured; 25, that on re-turning to the court of their sovereign, they
would render a true account of their adventures, even though they had
sometimes been worsted, to the king and the registrar of the order, on
pain of being deprived of the order of knighthood; 26, that above all
things they would be faithful, courteous, and humble, and would never be
wanting to their word for any harm or loss that might accrue to them.”
It is needless to point out that in this series of oaths, these
obligations imposed upon the knights, there is a moral development very
superior to that of the laic society of the period. Moral notions so
lofty, so delicate, so scrupulous, and so humane, emanated clearly from
the Christian clergy. Only the clergy thought thus about the duties and
the relations of mankind; and their influence was employed in directing
towards the accomplishment of such duties, towards the integrity of such
relations, the ideas and customs engendered by knighthood. It had not been
instituted with so pious and deep a design, for the protection of the
weak, the maintenance of justice, and the reformation of morals; it had
been, at its origin and in its earliest features, a natural consequence of
feudal relations and warlike life, a confirmation of the bonds established
and the sentiments aroused between different masters in the same country
and comrades with the same destinies. The clergy promptly saw what might
be deduced from such a fact; and they made of it a means of establishing
more peacefulness in society, and in the conduct of individuals a more
rigid morality. This was the general work they pursued; and, if it were
convenient to study the matter more closely, we might see, in the canons
of councils from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries, the Church
exerting herself to develop more and more in this order of knight-hood,
this institution of an essentially warlike origin, the moral and
civilizing character of which a glimpse has just been caught in the
documents of knighthood itself.
In proportion as knighthood appeared more and more in this simultaneously
warlike, religious, and moral character, it more and more gained power
over the imagination of men, and just as it had become closely interwoven
with their creeds, it soon became the ideal of their thoughts, the source
of their noblest pleasures. Poetry, like religion, took hold of it. From
the eleventh century onwards, knighthood, its ceremonies, its duties, and
its adventures, were the mine from which the poets drew in order to charm
the people, in order to satisfy and excite at the same time that yearning
of the soul, that need of events more varied and more captivating, and of
emotions more exalted and more pure than real life could furnish. In the
springtide of communities poetry is not merely a pleasure and a pastime
for a nation; it is a source of progress; it elevates and develops the
moral nature of men at the same time that it amuses them and stirs them
deeply. We have just seen what oaths were taken by the knights and
administered by the priests; and now, here is an ancient ballad by
Eustache Deschamps, a poet of the fourteenth century, from which it will
be seen that poets impressed upon knights the same duties and the same
virtues, and that the influence of poetry had the same aim as that of
religion:
I. Amend your lives, ye who would fain II. Be meek of heart; work day by day; III. Love the liege lord; with might and main |
A great deal has been said to the effect that all this is sheer poetry, a
beautiful chimera without any resemblance to reality. Indeed, it has just
been remarked here, that the three centuries under consideration, the
middle ages, were, in point of fact, one of the most brutal, most
ruffianly epochs in history, one of those wherein we encounter most crimes
and violence; wherein the public peace was most incessantly troubled; and
wherein the greatest licentiousness in morals prevailed. Nevertheless it
cannot be denied that side by side with these gross and barbarous morals,
this social disorder, there existed knightly morality and knightly poetry.
We have moral records confronting ruffianly deeds; and the contrast is
shocking, but real. It is exactly this contrast which makes the great and
fundamental characteristic of the middle ages. Let us turn our eyes
towards other communities, towards the earliest stages, for instance, of
Greek society, towards that heroic age of which Homer’s poems are the
faithful reflection. There is nothing there like the contrasts by which we
are struck in the middle ages. We do not see that, at the period and
amongst the people of the Homeric poems, there was abroad in the air or
had penetrated into the imaginations of men any idea more lofty or more
pure than their every-day actions; the heroes of Homer seem to have no
misgiving about their brutishness, their ferocity, their greed, their
egotism, there is nothing in their souls superior to the deeds of their
lives. In the France of the middle ages, on the contrary, though
practically crimes and disorders, moral and social evils abound, yet men
have in their souls and their imaginations loftier and purer instincts and
desires; their notions of virtue and their ideas of justice are very
superior to the practice pursued around them and amongst themselves; a
certain moral ideal hovers above this low and tumultuous community, and
attracts the notice and obtains the regard of men in whose life it is but
very faintly reflected. The Christian religion, undoubtedly, is, if not
the only, at any rate the principal cause of this great fact; for its
particular characteristic is to arouse amongst men a lofty moral ambition
by keeping constantly before their eyes a type infinitely beyond the reach
of human nature, and yet profoundly sympathetic with it. To Christianity
it was that the middle ages owed knighthood, that institution which, in
the midst of anarchy and barbarism, gave a poetical and moral beauty to
the period. It was feudal knighthood and Christianity together which
produced the two great and glorious events of those times, the Norman
conquest of England and the Crusades.
CHAPTER XV.
CONQUEST OF ENGLAND BY THE NORMANS.
At the beginning of the eleventh century, Robert, called “The
Magnificent,” the fifth in succession from the great chieftain Rollo who
had established the Northmen in France, was duke of Normandy. To the
nickname he earned by his nobleness and liberality some chronicles have
added another, and call him “Robert the Devil,” by reason of his reckless
and violent deeds of audacity, whether in private life or in warlike
expeditions. Hence a lively controversy amongst the learned upon the
question of deciding to which Robert to apply the latter epithet. Some
persist in assigning it to the duke of Normandy; others seek for some
other Robert upon whom to foist it. However that may be, in 1034 or 1035,
after having led a fair life enough from the political point of view, but
one full of turbulence and moral irregularity, Duke Robert resolved to
undertake, barefooted and staff in hand, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, “to
expiate his sins if God would deign to consent thereto.” The Norman
prelates and barons, having been summoned around him, conjured him to
renounce his plan; for to what troubles and perils would not his dominions
be exposed without lord or assured successor? “By my faith,” said Robert,
“I will not leave ye lordless. I have a young bastard who will grow,
please God, and of whose good qualities I have great hope. Take him, I
pray you, for lord. That he was not born in wedlock matters little to you;
he will be none the less able in battle, or at court, or in the palace, or
to render you justice. I make him my heir, and I hold him seized, from
this present, of the whole duchy of Normandy.” And they who were present
assented, but not without objection and disquietude.
There was certainly ample reason for objection and disquietude. Not only
was it a child of eight years of age to whom Duke Robert, at setting out
on his pious pilgrimage, was leaving Normandy; but this child had been
pronounced bastard by the duke his father at the moment of taking him for
his heir. Nine or ten years before, at Falaise, his favorite residence,
Robert had met, according to some at a people’s dance, according to others
on the banks of a stream where she was washing linen with her companions,
a young girl named Harlette or Harleve, daughter of a tanner in the town,
where they show to this day, it is said, the window from which the duke
saw her for the first time. She pleased his fancy, and was not more
strait-laced than the duke was scrupulous; and Fulbert, the tanner, kept
but little watch over his daughter. Robert gave the son born to him in
1027 the name of his glorious ancestor, William Longsword, the son and
successor of Rollo. The child was reared, according to some, in his
father’s palace, “right honorably as if he had been born in wedlock,” but,
according to others, in the house of his grandfather, the tanner; and one
of the neighboring burgesses, as he saw passing one of the principal
Norman lords, William de Bellesme, surnamed “The Fierce Talvas,” stopped
him, ironically saying, “Come in, my lord, and admire your suzerain’s
son.” The origin of young William was in every mouth, and gave occasion
for familiar allusions more often insulting than flattering. The epithet
bastard was, so to speak, incorporated with his name; and we cannot be
astonished that it lived in history, for, in the height of his power, he
sometimes accepted it proudly, calling himself, in several of his
charters, William the Bastard (Gulielmus Notlzus). He showed himself to be
none the less susceptible on this point when in 1048, during the siege of
Alencon, the domain of the Lord de Bellesme, the inhabitants hung from
their walls hides all raw and covered with dirt, which they shook when
they caught sight of William, with cries of “Plenty of work for the
tanner!” “By the glory of God,” cried William, “they shall pay me dear for
this insolent bra-very!” After an assault several of the besieged were
taken prisoners; and he had their eyes pulled out, and their feet and
hands cut off, and shot from his siege-machines these mutilated members
over the walls of the city.
Notwithstanding his recklessness and his being engrossed in his
pilgrimage, Duke Robert had taken some care for the situation in which he
was leaving his son, and some measures to lessen its perils. He had
appointed regent of Normandy, during William’s minority, his cousin, Alain
V., duke of Brittany, whose sagacity and friendship he had proved; and he
had confided the personal guardianship of the child, not to his mother.
Harlette, who was left very much out in the cold, but to one of his most
trusty officers, Gilbert Crespon, count of Brionne; and the strong castle
of Vaudreuil, the first foundation of which dated back, it was said, to
Queen Fredegonde, was assigned for the usual residence of the young duke.
Lastly, to confirm with brilliancy his son’s right as his successor to the
duchy of Normandy, and to assure him a powerful ally, Robert took him,
himself, to the court of his suzerain, Henry I., king of France, who
recognized the title of William the Bastard, and allowed him to take the
oath of allegiance and homage. Having thus prepared, as best he could, for
his son’s future, Robert set out on his pilgrimage. He visited Rome and
Constantinople, everywhere displaying his magnificence, together with his
humility. He fell ill from sheer fatigue whilst crossing Asia Minor, and
was obliged to be carried in a litter by four negroes. “Go and tell them
at home,” said he to a Norman pilgrim he met returning from the Holy Land,
“that you saw me being carried to Paradise by four devils.” On arriving at
Jerusalem, where he was received with great attention by the Mussulman
emir in command there, he discharged himself of his pious vow, and took
the road back to Europe. But he was poisoned, by whom or for what motive
is not clearly known, at Nicaea, in Bithynia, where he was buried in the
basilica of St. Mary—an honor, says the chronicle, which had never
been accorded to anybody.
From 1025 to 1042, during William’s minority, Normandy was a prey to the
robber-like ambition, the local quarrels, and the turbulent and brutal
passions of a host of petty castle-holders, nearly always at war, either
amongst themselves or with the young chieftain whose power they did not
fear, and whose rights they disputed. In vain did Duke Alain of Brittany,
in his capacity as regent appointed by Duke Robert, attempt to
re-establish order; and just when he seemed on the road to success he was
poisoned by those who could not succeed in beating him. Henry I., king of
France, being ill-disposed at bottom towards his Norman neighbors and
their young duke, for all that he had acknowledged him, profited by this
anarchy to filch from him certain portions of territory. Attacks without
warning, fearful murders, implacable vengeance, and sanguinary
disturbances in the towns, were evils which became common, and spread. The
clergy strove with courageous perseverance against the vices and crimes of
the period. The bishops convoked councils in their dioceses; the laic
lords, and even the people, were summoned to them; the peace of God was
proclaimed; and the priests, having in their hands lighted tapers, turned
them towards the ground and extinguished them, whilst the populace
repeated in chorus, “So may God extinguish the joys of those who refuse to
observe peace and justice.” The majority, however, of the Norman lords,
refused to enter into the engagement. In default of peace, it was
necessary to be content with the truce of God. It commenced on Wednesday
evening at sunset and concluded on Monday at sunrise. During the four days
and five nights comprised in this interval, all aggression was forbidden;
no slaying, wounding, pillaging, or burning could take place; but from
sunrise on Monday to sunset on Wednesday, for three clays and two nights,
any violence became allowable, any crime might recommence.
Meanwhile William was growing up, and the omens that had been drawn from
his early youth raised the popular hopes. It was reported that at his very
birth, when the midwife had put him unswaddled on a little heap of straw,
he had wriggled about and drawn together the straw with his hands,
insomuch that the midwife said, “By my faith, this child beginneth full
young to take and heap up: I know not what he will not do when he is
grown.” At a little later period, when a burgess of Falaise drew the
attention of the Lord William de Bellesme to the gay and sturdy lad as he
played amongst his mates, the fierce vassal muttered between his teeth,
“Accursed be thou of God! for I be certain that by thee mine honors will
be lowered.” The child on becoming man was handsomer and handsomer, “and
so lively and spirited that it seemed to all a marvel.” Amongst his mates,
command became soon a habit with him; he made them form line of battle, he
gave them the word of command, and he constituted himself their judge in
all quarrels. At a still later period, having often heard talk of revolts
excited against him, and of disorders which troubled the country, he was
moved, in consequence, to fits of violent irritation, which, however, he
learned instinctively to bide, “and in his child’s heart,” says the
chronicle, “he had welling up all the vigor of a man to teach the Normans
to forbear from all acts of irregularity.” At fifteen years of age, in
1042, he demanded to be armed knight, and to fulfil all forms necessary
“for having the right to serve and command in all ranks.” These forms were
in Normandy, by a relic, it is said, of the Danish and pagan customs, more
connected with war and less with religion than elsewhere; the young
candidates were not bound to confess, to spend a vigil in the church, and
to receive from the priest’s hands the sword he had consecrated on the
altar; it was even the custom to say that “he whose sword had been girded
upon him by a long-robed cleric was no true knight, but a cit without
spirit.” The day on which William for the first time donned his armor was
for his servants and all the spectators a gala day. “He was so tall, so
manly in face, and so proud of bearing, that it was a sight both pleasant
and terrible to see him guiding his horse’s career, flashing with his
sword, gleaming with his shield, and threatening with his casque and
javelins.” His first act of government was a rigorous decree against such
as should be guilty of murder, arson, and pillage; but he at the same time
granted an amnesty for past revolts, on condition of fealty and obedience
for the future.
For the establishment, however, of a young and disputed authority there is
need of something more than brilliant ceremonies and words partly minatory
and partly coaxing. William had to show what he was made of. A conspiracy
was formed against him in the heart of his feudal court, and almost of his
family. He had given kindly welcome to his cousin Guy of Burgundy, and had
even bestowed on him as a fief the countships of Vernon and Brionne. In
1044 the young duke was at Valognes; when suddenly, at midnight, one of
his trustiest servants, Golet, his fool, such as the great lords of the
time kept, knocked at the door of his chamber, crying, “Open, open, my
lord duke: fly, fly, or you are lost. They are armed, they are getting
ready; to tarry is death.” William did not hesitate; he got up, ran to the
stables, saddled his horse with his own hands, started off, followed a
road called to this day the duke’s way, and reached Falaise as a place of
safety. There news came to him that the conspiracy was taking the form of
insurrection, and that the rebels were seizing his domains. William showed
no more hesitation at Falaise than at Valognes; he started off at once,
repaired to Poissy, where Henry I., king of France, was then residing, and
claimed, as vassal, the help of his suzerain against traitors. Henry, who
himself was brave, was touched by this bold confidence, and promised his
young vassal effectual support. William returned to Normandy, summoned his
lieges, and took the field promptly. King Henry joined him at Argence,
with a body of three thousand men-at-arms, and a battle took place on the
10th of August, 1047, at Val des Dunes, three leagues from Caen. It was
very hotly contested. King Henry, unhorsed by a lance-thrust, ran a risk
of his life; but he remounted and valiantly returned to the melley.
William dashed in wherever the fight was thickest, showing himself
everywhere as able in command as ready to expose himself. A Norman lord,
Raoul de Tesson, held aloof with a troop of one hundred and forty knights.
“Who is he that bides yonder motionless?” asked the French king of the
young duke. “It is the banner of Raoul de Tesson,” answered William; “I
wot not that he hath aught against me.” But, though he had no personal
grievance, Raoul de Tesson had joined the insurgents, and sworn that he
would be the first to strike the duke in the conflict. Thinking better of
it, and perceiving William from afar, he pricked towards him, and taking
off his glove struck him gently on the shoulder, saying, “I swore to
strike you, and so I am quit: but fear nothing more from me.” “Thanks,
Raoul,” said William; “be well disposed, I pray you.” Raoul waited until
the two armies were at grips, and when he saw which way victory was
inclined, he hasted to contribute thereto. It was decisive: and William
the Bastard returned to Val des Dunes really duke of Normandy.
He made vigorous but not cruel use of his victory. He demolished his
enemies’ strong castles, magazines as they were for pillage no less than
bulwarks of feudal independence; but there is nothing to show that he
indulged in violence towards persons. He was even generous to the chief
concocter of the plot, Guy of Burgundy. He took from him the countships of
Vernon and Brionne, but permitted him still to live at his court, a place
which the Burgundian found himself too ill at ease to remain in, so he
returned to Burgundy, to conspire against his own eldest brother. William
was stern without hatred and merciful without kindliness, only thinking
which of the two might promote or retard his success, gentleness or
severity.
There soon came an opportunity for him to return to the king of France the
kindness he had received. Geoffrey Martel, duke of Anjou, being ambitious
and turbulent beyond the measure of his power, got embroiled with the king
his suzerain, and war broke out between them. The duke of Normandy went to
the aid of King Henry and made his success certain, which cost the duke
the fierce hostility of the count of Anjou and a four years’ war with that
inconvenient neighbor; a war full of dangerous incidents, wherein William
enhanced his character, already great, for personal valor. In an ambuscade
laid for him by Geoffrey Martel he lost some of his best knights, “whereat
he was so wroth,” says a chronicle, “that he galloped down with such force
upon Geoffrey, and struck him in such wise with his sword that he dinted
his helm, cut through his hood, lopped off his car, and with the same blow
felled him to earth. But the count was lifted up and remounted, and so
fled away.”
William made rapid advances both as prince and as man. Without being
austere in his private life, he was regular in his habits, and patronized
order and respectability in his household as well as in his dominions. He
resolved to marry to his own honor, and to the promotion of his greatness.
Baldwin the Debonnair, count of Flanders, one of the most powerful lords
of the day, had a daughter, “Matilda, beautiful, well-informed, firm in
the faith, a model of virtue and modesty.” William asked her hand in
marriage. Matilda refused, saying, “I would rather be veiled nun than
given in marriage to a bastard.” Hurt as he was, William did not give up.
He was even more persevering than susceptible; but he knew that he must
get still greater, and make an impression upon a young girl’s imagination
by the splendor of his fame and power. Some years later, being firmly
established in Normandy, dreaded by all his neighbors, and already showing
some foreshadowings of his design upon England, he renewed his matrimonial
quest in Flanders, but after so strange a fashion that, in spite of
contemporary testimony, several of the modern historians, in their zeal,
even at so distant a period, for observance of the proprieties, reject as
fabulous the story which is here related on the authority of the most
detailed account amongst all the chronicles which contain it. “A little
after that Duke William had heard how the damsel had made answer, he took
of his folk, and went privily to Lille, where the duke of Flanders and his
wife and his daughter then were. He entered into the hall, and, passing
on, as if to do some business, went into the countess’s chamber, and there
found the damsel daughter of Count Baldwin. He took her by the tresses,
dragged her round the chamber, trampled her under foot, and did beat her
soundly. Then he strode forth from the chamber, leaped upon his horse,
which was being held for him before the hall, struck in his spurs, and
went his way. At this deed was Count Baldwin much enraged; and when
matters had thus remained a while, Duke William sent once more to Count
Baldwin to parley again of the marriage. The count sounded his daughter on
the subject, and she answered that it pleased her well. So the nuptials
took place with very great joy. And after the aforesaid matters, Count
Baldwin, laughing withal, asked his daughter wherefore she had so lightly
accepted the marriage she had aforetime so cruelly refused. And she
answered that she did not then know the duke so well as she did now; for,
said she, if he had not great heart and high emprise, he had not been so
bold as to dare come and beat me in my father’s chamber.”
Amongst the historians who treat this story as a romantic and untruthlike
fable, some believe themselves to have discovered, in divers documents of
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, circumstances almost equally singular
as regards the cause of the obstacles met with at first by Duke William in
his pretensions to the hand of Princess Matilda, and as regards the motive
for the first refusal on the part of Matilda herself. According to some,
the Flemish princess had conceived a strong passion for a noble Saxon,
Brihtric Meaw, who had been sent by King Edward the Confessor to the court
of Flanders, and who was remarkable for his beauty. She wished to marry
him, but the handsome Saxon was not willing; and Matilda at first gave way
to violent grief on that account, and afterwards, when she became queen of
England, to vindictive hatred, the weight of which she made him feel
severely. Other writers go still farther, and say that, before being
sought in marriage by William, Matilda had not fallen in love with a
handsome Saxon, but had actually married a Flemish burgess, named Gerbod,
patron of the church of St. Dertin, at St. Omer, and that she had by him
two and perhaps three children, traces of whom recur, it is said, under
the reign of William, king of England. There is no occasion to enter upon
the learned controversies of which these different allegations have been
the cause; it is sufficient to say that they have led to nothing but
obscurity, contradiction, and doubt, and that there is more moral
verisimilitude in the account just given, especially in Matilda’s first
prejudice against marriage with a bastard, and in her conversation with
her father, Count Baldwin, when she had changed her opinion upon the
subject. Independently of the testimony of several chroniclers, French and
English, this tradition is mentioned, with all the simplicity of belief,
in one of the principal Flemish chronicles; and as to the ruffianly
gallantry employed by William to win his bride, there is nothing in it
very singular, considering the habits of the time, and we meet with more
than one example of adventures, if not exactly similar, at any rate very
analogous.
However that may be, this marriage brought William an unexpected
opportunity of entering into personal relations with one of the most
distinguished men of his age, and a man destined to become one of his own
most intimate advisers. In 1019, at the council of Rheims, Pope Leo IX.,
on political grounds rather than because of a prohibited degree of
relationship, had opposed the marriage of the duke of Normandy with the
daughter of the duke of Flanders, and had pronounced his veto upon it.
William took no heed; and, in 1052 or 1053, his marriage was celebrated at
Rouen with great pomp; but this ecclesiastical veto weighed upon his mind,
and he sought some means of getting it taken off. A learned Italian,
Lanfranc, a juris-consult of some fame already, whilst travelling in
France and repairing from Avranches to Rouen, was stopped near Brionne by
brigands, who, having plundered him, left him, with his eyes bandaged, in
a forest. His cries attracted the attention of passers-by, who took him to
a neighboring monastery, but lately founded by a pious Norman knight
retired from the world. Lanfranc was received in it, became a monk of it,
was elected its prior, attracted to it by his learned teaching a host of
pupils, and won therein his own great renown whilst laying the foundation
for that of the abbey of Bee, which was destined to be carried still
higher by one of his disciples, St. Anselm. Lanfranc was eloquent, great
in dialectics, of a sprightly wit, and lively in repartee. Relying upon
the pope’s decision, he spoke ill of William’s marriage with Matilda.
William was informed of this, and in a fit of despotic anger, ordered
Lanfranc to be driven from the monastery and banished from Normandy, and
even, it is said, the dependency which he inhabited as prior of the abbey,
to be burned. The order was executed; and Lanfranc set out, mounted on a
sorry little horse given him, no doubt, by the abbey. By what chance is
not known, but probably on a hunting-party, his favorite diversion,
William, with his retinue, happened to cross the road which Lanfranc was
slowly pursuing. “My lord,” said the monk, addressing him, “I am obeying
your orders; I am going away, but my horse is a sorry beast; if you will
give me a better one, I will go faster.” William halted, entered into
conversation with Lanfranc, let him stay, and sent him back with a present
to his abbey. A little while afterwards Lanfranc was at Rome, and defended
before Pope Victor II. William’s marriage with Matilda: he was successful,
and the pope took off the veto on the sole condition that the couple, in
sign of penitence, should each found a religious house. Matilda,
accordingly, founded at Caen, for women, the abbey of the Holy Trinity;
and William, for men, that of St. Stephen. Lanfranc was the first abbot of
the latter; and when William became king of England, Lanfranc was made
archbishop of Canterbury and primate of the Church of England, as well as
privy counsellor of his king. William excelled in the art, so essential to
government, of promptly recognizing the worth of men, and of appropriating
their influence to himself whilst exerting his own over them.
About the same time he gave his contemporaries, princes and peoples, new
proofs of his ability and power. Henry I., king of France, growing more
and more disquieted at and jealous of the duke of Normandy’s ascendency,
secretly excited against him opposition and even revolt in his dominions.
These dealings led to open war between the suzerain and the vassal, and
the war concluded with two battles won by William, one at Mortemer near
Neuchatel in Bray, the other at Varaville near Troarrh “After which,” said
William himself, “King Henry never passed a night tranquilly on my
ground.” In 1059 peace was concluded between the two princes. Henry I.
died almost immediately afterwards, and on the 25th of August, 1060, his
son Philip I. succeeded him, under the regency of Baldwin, count of
Flanders, father of the Duchess Matilda. Duke William was present in state
at the coronation of the new king of France, lent him effectual assistance
against the revolts which took place in Gascony, reentered Normandy for
the purpose of holding at Caen, in 1061, the Estates of his duchy, and at
that time published the famous decree observed long after him, under the
name of the law of curfew, which ordered “that every evening the bell
should be rung in all parishes to warn every one to prayer, and
house-closing, and no more running about the streets.”
The passion for orderliness in his dominion did not cool his ardor for
conquest. In 1063, after the death of his young neighbor Herbert II.,
count of Maine, William took possession of this beautiful countship; not
without some opposition on the part of the inhabitants, nor without
suspicion of having poisoned his rival, Walter, count of Vexin. It is said
that after this conquest William meditated that of Brittany; but there is
every indication that he had formed a far vaster design, and that the day
of its execution was approaching.
From the time of Rollo’s settlement in Normandy, the communications of the
Normans with England had become more and more frequent, and important for
the two countries. The success of the invasions of the Danes in England in
the tenth century, and the reigns of three kings of the Danish line, had
obliged the princes of Saxon race to take refuge in Normandy, the duke of
which, Richard I., had given his daughter Emma in marriage to their
grandfather, Ethelred II. When, at the death of the last Danish king,
Hardicanute, the Saxon prince Edward ascended the throne of his fathers,
he had passed twenty-seven years of exile in Normandy, and he returned to
England “almost a stranger,” in the words of the chronicles, to the
country of his ancestors; far more Norman than Saxon in his manners,
tastes, and language, and surrounded by Normans, whose numbers and
prestige under his reign increased from day to day. A hot rivalry,
nationally as well as courtly, grew up between them and the Saxons. At the
head of these latter was Godwin, count of Kent, and his five sons, the
eldest of whom, Harold, was destined before long to bear the whole brunt
of the struggle. Between these powerful rivals, Edward the Confessor, a
pacific, pious, gentle, and undecided king, wavered incessantly; at one
time trying to resist, and at another compelled to yield to the
pretensions and seditions by which he was beset. In 1051 the Saxon party
and its head, Godwin, had risen in revolt. Duke William, on invitation,
perhaps, from King Edward, paid a brilliant visit to England, where he
found Normans everywhere established and powerful, in Church as well as in
State; in command of the fleets, ports, and principal English places. King
Edward received him “as his own son, gave him arms, horses, hounds, and
hawking-birds,” and sent him home full of presents and hopes. The
chronicler, Ingulf, who accompanied William on his return to Normandy, and
remained attached to him as private secretary, affirms that, during this
visit, not only was there no question, between King Edward and the duke of
Normandy, of the latter’s possible succession to the throne of England,
but that never as yet had this probability occupied the attention of
William.
It is very doubtful whether William had said nothing upon the subject to
King Edward at that time; and it is certain, from William’s own testimony,
that he had for a long while been thinking about it. Four years after this
visit of the duke to England, King Edward was reconciled to and lived on
good terms with the family of the Godwins. Their father was dead, and the
eldest son, Harold, asked the king’s permission to go to Normandy and
claim the release of his brother and nephew, who had been left as hostages
in the keeping of Duke William. The king did not approve of the project.
“I have no wish to constrain thee,” said he to Harold: “but if thou go, it
will be without my consent: and, assuredly, thy trip will bring some
misfortune upon thee and our country. I know Duke William and his crafty
spirit; he hates thee, and will grant thee nought unless he see his
advantage therefrom. The only way to make him give up the hostages will be
to send some other than thyself.” Harold, however, persisted and went.
William received him with apparent cordiality, promised him the release of
the two hostages, escorted him and his comrades from castle to castle, and
from entertainment to entertainment, made them knights of the grand Norman
order, and even invited them, “by way of trying their new spurs,” to
accompany him on a little warlike expedition he was about to undertake in
Brittany. Harold and his comrades behaved gallantly: and he and William
shared the same tent and the same table. On returning, as they trotted
side by side, William turned the conversation upon his youthful connection
with the king of England. “When Edward and I,” said he to the Saxon, “were
living like brothers under the same roof, he promised, if ever he became
king of England, to make me heir to his kingdom; I should very much like
thee, Harold, to help me to realize this promise; and be assured that, if
by thy aid I obtain the kingdom, whatsoever thou askest of me, I will
grant it forthwith.” Harold, in surprise and confusion, answered by an
assent which he tried to make as vague as possible. William took it as
positive. “Since thou dost consent to serve me,” said he, “thou must
engage to fortify the castle of Dover, dig a well of fresh water there,
and put it into the hands of my men-at-arms; thou must also give me thy
sister to be married to one of my barons, and thou must thyself espouse my
daughter Adele.” Harold, “not witting,” says the chronicler, “how to
escape from this pressing danger,” promised all the duke asked of him,
reckoning, doubt-less, on disregarding his engagement; and for the moment
William asked him nothing more.
But a few days afterwards he summoned, at Avranches according to some, and
at Bayeux according to others, and, more probably still, at
Bonneville-sur-Touques, his Norman barons; and, in the midst of this
assembly, at which Harold was present, William, seated with his naked
sword in his hand, caused to be brought and placed upon a table covered
with cloth of gold two reliquaries. “Harold,” said he, “I call upon thee,
in presence of this noble assemblage, to confirm by oath the promises thou
didst make me, to wit, to aid me to obtain the kingdom of England after
the death of King Edward, to espouse my daughter Adele, and to send me thy
sister to be married to one of my people.” Harold, who had not expected
this public summons, nevertheless did not hesitate any more than he had
hesitated in his private conversation with William; he drew near, laid his
hand on the two reliquaries, and swore to observe, to the best of his
power, his agreement with the duke, should he live and God help. “God
help!” repeated those who were present. William made a sign; the cloth of
gold was removed, and there was discovered a tub filled to the edge with
bones and relies of all the saints that could be got together. The
chronicler-poet, Robert Wace, who, alone and long afterwards, recounts
this last particular, adds that Harold was visibly troubled at sight of
this saintly heap; but he had sworn. It is honorable to human nature not
to be indifferent to oaths even when those who exact them have but small
reliance upon them, and when he who takes them has but small intention of
keeping them. And so Harold departed laden with presents, leaving William
satisfied, but not over-confident.
When, on returning to England, Harold told King Edward what had passed
between William and himself, “Did I not warn thee,” said the king, “that I
knew William, and that thy journey would bring great misfortunes upon
thyself and upon our nation? Grant Heaven that those misfortunes come not
during my life!” The king’s wish was not granted. He fell ill; and on the
5th of January, 1066, he lay on his couch almost at the point of death.
Harold and his kindred entered the chamber, and prayed the king to name a
successor by whom the kingdom might be governed securely. “Ye know,” said
Edward, “that I have left my kingdom to the Duke of Normandy; and are
there not here, among ye, those who have sworn to assure his succession?”
Harold advanced, and once more asked the king on whom the crown should
devolve. “Take it, if it is thy wish, Harold,” said Edward; “but the gift
will be thy ruin; against the duke and his barons thy power will not
suffice.”—Harold declared that he feared neither the Norman nor any
other foe. The king, vexed at this importunity, turned round in his bed,
saying, “Let the English make king of whom they will, Harold or another; I
consent;” and shortly after expired. The very day after the celebration of
his obsequies, Harold was proclaimed king by his partisans, amidst no
small public disquietude, and Aldred, archbishop of York, lost no time in
anointing him.
William was in his park of Rouvray, near Rouen, trying a bow and arrows
for the chase, when a faithful servant arrived from England, to tell him
that Edward was dead and Harold proclaimed king. William gave his bow to
one of his people, and went back to his palace at Rouen, where he paced
about in silence, sitting down, rising up, leaning upon a bench, without
opening his lips and without any one of his people’s daring to address a
word to him. There entered his seneschal William de Bretenil, of whom
“What ails the duke?” asked they who were present. “Ye will soon know,”
answered he. Then going up to the duke, he said, “Wherefore conceal your
tidings, my lord? All the city knows that King Edward is dead; and that
Harold has broken his oath to you, and had himself crowned king.” “Ay,”
said William, “it is that which doth weigh me down.” “My lord,” said
William Fitz-Osbern, a gallant knight and confidential friend of the duke,
“none should be wroth over what can be mended: it depends but on you to
stop the mischief Harold is doing you; you shall destroy him, if it please
you. You have right; you have good men and true to serve you; you need but
have courage: set on boldly.” William gathered together his most important
and most trusted counsellors; and they were unanimous in urging him to
resent the perjury and injury. He sent to Harold a messenger charged to
say, “William, duke of the Normans, doth recall to thee the oath thou
swarest to him with thy mouth and with thy hand, on real and saintly
relics.” “It is true,” answered Harold, “that I swore, but on compulsion;
I promised what did not belong to me; my kingship is not mine own; I
cannot put it off from me without the consent of the country. I cannot any
the more, without the consent of the country, espouse a foreigner. As for
my sister, whom the duke claims for one of his chieftains, she died within
the year; if he will, I will send him the corpse.” William replied without
any violence, claiming the conditions sworn, and especially Harold’s
marriage with his daughter Adele. For all answer to this summons Harold
married a Saxon, sister of two powerful Saxon chieftains; Edwin and
Morkar. There was an open rupture; and William swore that “within the year
he would go and claim, at the sword’s point, payment of what was due to
him, on the very spot where Harold thought himself to be most firm on his
feet.”
And he set himself to the work. But, being as far-sighted as he was
ambitious, he resolved to secure for his enterprise the sanction of
religious authority and the formal assent of the Estates of Normandy. Not
that he had any inclination to subordinate his power to that of the Pope.
Five years previously, Robert de Grandmesnil, abbot of St. Evroul, with
whom William had got embroiled, had claimed to re-enter his monastery as
master by virtue solely of an order from Pope Nicholas II. “I will listen
to the legates of the Pope, the common father of the faithful,” said
William, “if they come to me to speak of the Christian faith and religion;
but if a monk of my Estates permit himself a single word beyond his place,
I will have him hanged by his cowl from the highest oak of the nearest
forest.” When, in 1000, he denounced to Pope Alexander II. the perjury of
Harold, asking him at the same time to do him justice, he made no scruple
about promising that, if the Pope authorized him to right himself by war,
he would bring back the kingdom of England to obedience to the Holy See.
He had Lanfranc for his negotiator with the court of Rome, and Pope
Alexander II. had for chief counsellor the celebrated monk Hildebrand, who
was destined to succeed him under the name of Gregory VII. The opportunity
of extending the empire of the Church was too tempting to be spurned, and
her future head too bold not to seize it whatever might be the uncertainty
and danger of the issue; and in spite of hesitation on the part of some of
the Pope’s advisers, the question was promptly decided in accordance with
William’s demand. Harold and his adherents were excommunicated, and, on
committing his bull to the hands of William’s messenger, the Pope added a
banner of the Roman Church and a ring containing, it is said, a hair of
St. Peter set in a diamond.
The Estates of Normandy were less easy to manage. William called them
together at Lillebonne; and several of his vassals showed a zealous
readiness to furnish him with vessels and victual and to follow him beyond
the sea, but others declared that they were not bound to any such service,
and that they would not lend themselves to it; they had calls enough
already, and had nothing more to spare. William Fitz-Osbern scouted these
objections. “He is your lord, and hath need of you,” said he to the
recalcitrants; “you ought to offer yourselves to him, and not wait to be
asked. If he succeed in his purpose, you will be more powerful as well as
he; if you fail him, and he succeed without you, he will remember it: show
that you love him, and what ye do, do with a good grace.” The discussion
was keen. Many persisted in saying, “True, he is our lord; but if we pay
him his rents, that should suffice: we are not bound to go and serve
beyond the seas; we are already much burdened for his wars.” It was at
last agreed that Fitz-Osbern should give the duke the assembly’s reply;
for he knew well, they said, the ability of each. “If ye mind not to do
what I shall say,” said Fitz-Osbern, “charge me not therewith.” “We will
be bound by it, and will do it,” was the cry amidst general confusion.
They repaired to the duke’s presence. “My lord,” said Fitz-Osbern, “I trow
that there be not in the whole world such folk as these. You know the
trouble and labor they have already undergone in supporting your rights;
and they are minded to do still more, and serve you at all points, this
side the sea and t’other. Go you before, and they will follow you; and
spare them in nothing. As for me, I will furnish you with sixty vessels,
manned with good fighters.” “Nay, nay,” cried several of those present,
prelates and barons, “we charged you not with such reply; when he hath
business in his own country, we will do him the service we owe him; we be
not bound to serve him in conquering another’s territory, or to go beyond
sea for him.” And they gathered themselves together in knots with much
uproar.
“William was very wroth,” says the chronicler, “retired to a chamber
apart, summoned those in whom he had most confidence, and by their advice
called before him his barons, each separately, and asked them if they were
willing to help him. He had no intention, he told them, of doing them
wrong, nor would he and his, now or hereafter, ever cease to treat with
them in perfect courtesy; and he would give them, in writing, such
assurances as they were minded to devise. The majority of his people
agreed to give him, more or less, according to circumstances; and he had
everything reduced to writing.” At the same time he made an appeal to all
his neighbors, Bretons, Manceaux, and Angevines, hunting up soldiers
wherever he could find them, and promising all who desired them lands in
England if he effected its conquest. Lastly he repaired in person, first
to Philip I., king of France, his suzerain, then to Baldwin V., count of
Flanders, his father-in-law, asking their assistance for his enterprise.
Philip gave a formal refusal. “What the duke demands of you,” said his
advisers, “is to his own profit and to your hurt; if you aid him, your
country will be much burdened; and if the duke fail, you will have the
English your foes forever.” The count of Flanders made show of a similar
refusal; but privately he authorized William to raise soldiers in
Flanders, and pressed his vassals to follow him. William, having thus
hunted up and collected all the forces he could hope for, thought only of
putting them in motion, and of hurrying on the preparations for his
departure.
Whilst, in obedience to his orders, the whole expedition, troops and
ships, were collecting at Dives, he received from Conan II., duke of
Brittany, this message: “I learn that thou art now minded to go beyond sea
and conquer for thyself the kingdom of England. At the moment of starting
for Jerusalem, Robert, duke of Normandy, whom thou feignest to regard as
thy father, left all his heritage to Alain, my father and his cousin: but
thou and thy accomplices slew my father with poison at Vimeux, in
Normandy. Afterwards thou didst invade his territory because I was too
young to defend it; and, contrary to all right, seeing that thou art a
bastard, thou hast kept it until this day. Now, therefore, either give me
back this Normandy which thou owest me, or I will make war upon thee with
all my forces.” “At this message,” say the chronicles, “William was at
first somewhat dismayed; but a Breton lord, who had sworn fidelity to the
two counts, and bore messages from one to the other, rubbed poison upon
the inside of Conan’s hunting-horn, of his horse’s reins, and of his
gloves. Conan, having unwittingly put on his gloves and handled the reins
of his horse, lifted his hands to his face, and the touch having filled
him with poisonous infection, he died soon after, to the great sorrow of
his people, for he was an able and brave man, and inclined to justice. And
he who had betrayed him quitted before long the army of Conan, and
informed Duke William of his death.”
Conan is not the only one of William’s foes whom he was suspected of
making away with by poison: there are no proofs; but contemporary
assertions are positive, and the public of the time believed them, without
surprise. Being as unscrupulous about means as ambitious and bold in aim,
William was not of those whose character repels such an accusation. What,
however, diminishes the suspicion is that, after and in spite of Conan’s
death, several Breton knights, and, amongst others, two sons of Count
Eudes, his uncle, attended at the trysting-place of the Norman troops and
took part in the expedition.
Dives was the place of assemblage appointed for fleet and army. William
repaired thither about the end of August, 1066. But for several weeks
contrary winds prevented him from putting to sea; some vessels which made
the attempt perished in the tempest; and some of the volunteer adventurers
got disgusted, and deserted. William maintained strict discipline amongst
this multitude, forbidding plunder so strictly that “the cattle fed in the
fields in full security.” The soldiers grew tired of waiting in idleness
and often in sickness. “Yon is a mad-man,” said they, “who is minded to
possess himself of another’s land; God is against the design, and so
refuses us a wind.”
About the 20th of September the weather changed. The fleet got ready, but
could only go and anchor at St. Valery at the mouth of the Somme. There it
was necessary to wait several more days; impatience and disquietude were
redoubled; “and there appeared in the heavens a star with a tail, a
certain sign of great things to come.” William had the shrine of St.
Valery brought out and paraded about, being more impatient in his soul
than anybody, but ever confident in his will and his good fortune. There
was brought to him a spy whom Harold had sent to watch the forces and
plans of the enemy; and William dismissed him, saying, “Harold hath no
need to take any care or be at any charges to know how we be, and what we
be doing; he shall see for himself, and shall feel before the end of the
year.” At last, on the 27th of September, 1066, the sun rose on a calm sea
and with a favorable wind; and towards evening the fleet set out. The
Mora, the vessel on which William was, and which had been given to him by
his wife, Matilda, led the way; and a figure in gilded bronze, some say in
gold, representing their youngest son, William, had been placed on the
prow, with the face towards England. Being a better sailer than the
others, this ship was soon a long way ahead; and William had a mariner
sent to the top of the mainmast to see if the fleet were following. “I see
nought but sea and sky,” said the mariner. William had the ship brought
to; and, the second time, the mariner said, “I see four ships.” Before
long he cried, “I see a forest of masts and sails.” On the 29th of
September, St. Michael’s day, the expedition arrived off the coast of
England, at Pevensey, near Hastings, and “when the tide had ebbed, and the
ships remained aground on the strand,” says the chronicles the landing was
effected without obstacle; not a Saxon soldier appeared on the coast.
William was the last to leave his ship; and on setting foot on the sand he
made a false step and fell. “Bad sign!” was muttered around him; “God have
us in His keeping!” “What say you, lords?” cried William: “by the glory of
God, I have grasped this land with my hands; all that there is of it is
ours.”
With what forces William undertook the conquest of England, how many ships
composed his fleet, and how many men were aboard the ships, are questions
impossible to be decided with any precision, as we have frequently before
had occasion to remark, amidst the exaggerations and disagreements of
chroniclers. Robert Wace reports, in his Romance of Rou, that he had heard
from his father, one of William’s servants on this expedition, that the
fleet numbered six hundred and ninety-six vessels, but he had found in
divers writings that there were more than three thousand. M. Augustin
Thierry, after his learned researches, says, in his history of the Conquest
of England by the Normans, that “four hundred vessels of four sails,
and more than a thousand transport ships, moved out into the open sea, to
the sound of trumpets and of a great cry of joy raised by sixty thousand
throats.” It is probable that the estimate of the fleet is pretty
accurate, and that of the army exaggerated. We saw in 1830 what efforts
and pains it required, amidst the power and intelligent ability of modern
civilization, to transport from France to Algeria thirty-seven thousand
men aboard three squadrons, comprising six hundred and seventy-five ships
of all sorts. Granted that in the eleventh century there was more
haphazard than in the nineteenth, and that there was less care for human
life on the eve of a war; still, without a doubt, the armament of Normandy
in 1066 was not to be compared with that of France in 1830, and yet
William’s intention was to conquer England, whereas Charles X. thought
only of chastising the dey of Algiers.
Whilst William was making for the southern coast of England, Harold was
repairing by forced marches to the north in order to defend, against the
rebellion of his brother Tostig and the invasion of a Norwegian army, his
short-lived kingship thus menaced, at two ends of the country, by two
formidable enemies. On the 25th of September, 1066, he gained at York a
brilliant victory over his northern foe; and, wounded as he was, he no
sooner learned that Duke William had on the 29th pitched his camp and
planted his flag at Pevensey, than he set out in haste for the south. As
he approached, William received, from what source is not known, this
message: “King Harold hath given battle to his brother Tostig and the king
of Norway. He hath slain them both, and hath destroyed their army. He is
returning at the head of numerous and valiant warriors, against whom thine
own, I trove, will be worth no more than wretched curs. Thou passest for a
man of wisdom and prudence; be not rash, plunge not thyself into danger; I
adjure thee to abide in thy intrenchments, and not to come really to
blows.” “I thank thy master,” answered William, “for his prudent counsel,
albeit he might have given it to me without insult. Carry him back this
reply: I will not hide me behind ramparts; I will come to blows with
Harold as soon as I may; and with the aid of Heaven’s good will I would
trust in the valor of my men against his, even though I had but ten
thousand to lead against his sixty thousand.” But the proud confidence of
William did not affect his prudence. He received from Harold himself a
message wherein the Saxon, affirming his right to the kingship by virtue
of the Saxon laws and the last words of King Edward, summoned him to
evacuate England with all his people; on which condition alone he engaged
to preserve friendship with him, and all agreements between them as to
Normandy. After having come to an understanding with his barons, William
maintained his right to the crown of England by virtue of the first
decision of King Edward, and the oaths of Harold himself. “I am ready,”
said he, “to uphold my cause against him by the forms of justice, either
according to the law of the Normans or according to that of the Saxons, as
he pleases. If, by virtue of equity, Normans or English decide that Harold
has a right to possess the kingdom, let him possess it in peace; if they
acknowledge that it is to me that the kingdom ought to belong, let him
give it up to me. If he refuse these conditions, I do not think it just
that my people or his, who are not a whit to blame for our quarrel, should
slay one another in battle; I am ready to maintain, at the price of my
head against his, that it is to me and not to him that the kingdom of
England belongs.” At this proposition Harold was troubled, and remained a
while without replying; then, as the monk was urgent, “Let the Lord God,”
said he, “judge this day betwixt me and William as to what is just.” The
negotiation continued, and William summed it all up in these terms, which
the monk reported to Harold in presence of the English chieftains: “My
lord, the duke of Normandy biddeth you do one of these things: give up to
him the kingdom of England, and take his daughter in marriage, as you
sware to him on the holy relics; or, respecting the question between him
and you, submit yourself to the Pope’s decision; or fight with him, body
to body, and let him who is victorious and forces his enemy to yield have
the kingdom.” Harold replied, “without opinion or advice taken,” says the
chronicle, “I will not cede him the kingdom; I will not abide by the
Pope’s award; and I will not fight with him.” William, still in concert
with his barons, made a farther advance. “If Harold will come to an
agreement with me,” he said, “I will leave him all the territory beyond
the Humber, towards Scotland.” “My lord,” said the barons to the duke,
“make an end of these parleys; if we must fight, let it be soon; for every
day come folk to Harold.” “By my faith,” said the duke, “if we agree not
on terms to-day, to-morrow we will join battle.” The third proposal for an
agreement was as little successful as the former two; on both sides there
was no belief in peace, and they were eager to decide the quarrel once for
all.
Some of the Saxon chieftains advised Harold to fall back on London, and
ravage all the country, so as to starve out the invaders. “By my faith,”
said Harold, “I will not destroy the country I have in keeping; I, with my
people, will fight.” “Abide in London,” said his younger brother, Gurth:
“thou canst not deny that, perforce or by free will, thou didst swear to
Duke William; but, as for us, we have sworn nought; we will fight for our
country; if we alone fight, thy cause will be good in any case; if we fly,
thou shalt rally us; if we fall, thou shalt avenge us.” Harold rejected
this advice, “considering it shame to his past life to turn his back,
whatever were the peril.” Certain of his people, whom he had sent to
reconnoitre the Norman army, returned saying that there were more priests
in William’s camp than warriors in his own; for the Normans, at this
period, wore shaven chins and short hair, whilst the English let hair and
beard grow. “Ye do err,” said Harold; “these be not priests, but good
men-at-arms, who will show us what they can do.”
On the eve of the battle, the Saxons passed the night in amusement,
eating, drinking, and singing, with great uproar; the Normans, on the
contrary, were preparing their arms, saying their prayers, and “confessing
to their priests—all who would.” On the 14th of October, 1066, when
Duke William put on his armor, his coat of mail was given to him the wrong
way. “Bad omen!” cried some of his people; “if such a thing had happened
to us, we would not fight to-day.” “Be ye not disquieted,” said the duke;
“I have never believed in sorcerers and diviners, and I never liked them;
I believe in God, and in Him I put my trust.” He assembled his
men-at-arms, and setting himself upon a high place, so that all might hear
him, he said to them, “My true and loyal friends, ye have crossed the seas
for love of me, and for that I cannot thank ye as I ought; but I will make
what return I may, and what I have ye shall have. I am not come only to
take what I demanded, or to get my rights, but to punish felonies,
treasons, and breaches of faith committed against our people by the men of
this country. Think, moreover, what great honor ye will have to-day if the
day be ours. And bethink ye that, if ye be discomfited, ye be dead men
without help; for ye have not whither ye may retreat, seeing that our
ships be broken up, and our mariners be here with us. He who flies will be
a dead man; he who fights will be saved. For God’s sake, let each man do
his duty; trust we in God, and the day will be ours.”
The address was too long for the duke’s faithful comrade, William
Fitz-Osborn. “My lord,” said he, “we dally; let us all to arms and
forward, forward!” The army got in motion, starting from the hill of
Telham or Heathland, according to Mr. Freeman, marching to attack the
English on the opposite hill of Senlac. A Norman, called Taillefer, “who
sang very well, and rode a horse which was very fast, came up to the duke.
‘My lord,’ said he, ‘I have served you long, and you owe me for all my
service: pay me to day, an it please you; grant unto me, for recompense in
full, to strike the first blow in the battle.’ ‘I grant it,’ quoth the
duke. So Taillefer darted before him, singing the deeds of Charlemagne, of
Roland, of Oliver, and of the vassals who fell at Roncesvalles.” As he
sang, he played with his sword, throwing it up into the air and catching
it in his right hand; and the Normans followed, repeating his songs, and
crying, “God help! God help!” The English, intrenched upon a plateau
towards which the Normans were ascending, awaited the assault, shouting,
and defying the foe.
The battle, thus begun, lasted nine hours, with equal obstinacy on both
sides, and varied success from hour to hour. Harold, though wounded at the
commencement of the fray, did not cease for a moment to fight, on foot,
with his two brothers beside him, and around him the troops of London, who
had the privilege of forming the king’s guard when he delivered a battle.
Rudely repulsed at the first charge, some bodies of Norman troops fell
back in disorder, and a rumor spread amongst them that the duke was slain;
but William threw himself before the fugitives, and, taking off his
helmet, cried, “Look at me; here I am; I live, and by God’s help will
conquer.” So they returned to the combat. But the English were firm; the
Normans could not force their intrenchrnents; and William ordered his men
to feign a retreat, and all but a flight. At this sight the English bore
down in pursuit: “and still Norman fled and Saxon pursued, until a
trumpeter, who had been ordered by the duke thus to turn back the Normans,
began to sound the recall. Then were seen the Normans turning back to face
the English, and attacking them with their swords, and amongst the
English, some flying, some dying, some asking mercy in their own tongue.”
The struggle once more became general and fierce. William had three horses
killed under him; “but he jumped immediately upon a fresh steed, and left
not long unavenged the death of that which had but lately carried him.” At
last the intrenchments of the English were stormed; Harold fell mortally
wounded by an arrow which pierced his skull; his two brothers and his
bravest comrades fell at his side; the fight was prolonged between the
English dispersed and the Normans remorselessly pursuing; the standard
sent from Rome to the duke of Normandy had replaced the Saxon flag on the
very spot where Harold had fallen; and, all around, the ground continued
to get covered with dead and dying, fruitless victims of the passions of
the combatants. Next day William went over the field of battle; and he was
heard to say, in a tone of mingled triumph and sorrow, “Here is verily a
lake of blood!”
There was, long after the battle of Senlac, or Hastings, as it is commonly
called, a patriotic superstition in the country to the effect that, when
the rain had moistened the soil, there were to be seen traces of blood on
the ground where it had taken place.
Having thus secured the victory, William had his tent pitched at the very
point where the standard which had come from Rome had replaced the Saxon
banner, and he passed the night supping and chatting with his chieftains,
not far from the corpses scattered over the battle-field. Next day it was
necessary to attend to the burial of all these dead, conquerors or
conquered. William was full of care and affection towards his comrades;
and on the eve of the battle, during a long and arduous reconnoissance
which he had undertaken with some of them, he had insisted upon carrying,
for some time, in addition to his own cuirass, that of his faithful
William Fitz-Osbern, who he saw was fatigued in spite of his usual
strength; but towards his enemies William was harsh and resentful. Githa,
Harold’s mother, sent to him to ask for her son’s corpse, offering for it
its weight in gold. “Nay,” said William, “Harold was a perjurer; let him
have for burial-place the sand of the shore, where he was so madly fain to
rule.” Two Saxon monks from Waltham Abbey, which had been founded by
Harold, came, by their abbot’s order, and claimed for their church the
remains of their benefactor; and William, indifferent as he had been to a
mother’s grief, would not displease an abbey. But when the monks set about
finding the body of Harold, there was none to recognize it, and they had
recourse to a young girl, Edith, Swan’s-neck, whom Harold had loved. She
discovered amongst the corpses her lover’s mutilated body; and the monks
bore it away to the church at Waltham, where it was buried. Some time
later a rumor was spread abroad that Harold was wounded, and carried to a
neighboring castle, perhaps Dover, whence he went to the abbey of St.
John, at Chester, where he lived a long while in a solitary cell, and
where William the Conqueror’s second son, Henry I., the third Norman king
of England, one day went to see him and had an interview with him. But
this legend, in which there is nothing chronologically impossible, rests
on no sound basis of evidence, and is discountenanced by all contemporary
accounts.
Before following up his victory, William resolved to perpetuate the
remembrance of it by a religious monument, and he decreed the foundation
of an abbey on the very field of the battle of Hastings, from which it
took its name, Battle Abbey. He endowed this abbey with all the
neighboring territory within the radius of a league, “the very spot,” says
his charter, “which gave me my crown.” He made it free of the jurisdiction
of any prelate, dedicated it to St. Martin of Tours, patron saint of the
soldiers of Gaul, and ordered that there should be deposited in its
archives a register containing the names of all the lords, knights, and
men of mark who had accompanied him on his expedition. When the building
of the abbey began, the builders observed a want of water; and they
notified William of the fact. “Work away,” said he: “if God grant me life,
I will make such good provision for the place that more wine shall be
found there than there is water in other monasteries.”
It was not everything, however, to be victorious, it was still necessary
to be recognized as king. When the news of the defeat at Hastings and the
death of Harold was spread abroad in the country, the emotion was lively
and seemed to be profound; the great Saxon national council, the
Wittenagemote, assembled at London; the remnants of the Saxon army rallied
there; and search was made for other kings than the Norman duke. Harold
left two sons, very young and not in a condition to reign; but his two
brothers-in-law, Edwin and Morkar, held dominion in the north of England,
whilst the southern provinces, and amongst them the city of London, had a
popular aspirant, a nephew of Edward the Confessor, in Edgar surnamed
Atheliny (the noble, the illustrious), as the descendant of several kings.
What with these different pretensions, there were discussion, hesitation,
and delay; but at last the young Edgar prevailed, and was proclaimed king.
Meanwhile William was advancing with his army, slowly, prudently, as a man
resolved to risk nothing and calculating upon the natural results of his
victory. At some points he encountered attempts at resistance, but he
easily overcame them, occupied successively Romney, Dover, Canterbury, and
Rochester, appeared before London without trying to enter it, and moved on
Winchester, which was the residence of Edward the Confessor’s widow, Queen
Editha, who had received that important city as dowry. Through respect for
her, William, who presented himself in the character of relative and heir
of King Edward, did not enter the place, and merely called upon the
inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance to him and do him homage, which
they did with the queen’s consent. William returned towards London and
commenced the siege, or rather investment of it, by establishing his camp
at Berkhampstead, in the county of Hertford. He entered before long into
secret communication with an influential burgess, named Ansgard, an old
man who had seen service, and who, riddled with wounds, had himself
carried about the streets in a litter. Ansgard had but little difficulty
in inducing the authorities of London to make pacific overtures to the
duke, and William had still less difficulty in convincing the messenger of
the moderation of his designs. “The king salutes ye, and offers ye peace,”
said Ansgard to the municipal authorities of London on his return from the
camp: “‘tis a king who hath no peer; he is handsomer than the sun, wiser
than Solomon, more active and greater than Charlemagne,” and the
enthusiastic poet adds that the people as well as the senate eagerly
welcomed these words, and renounced, both of them, the young king they had
but lately proclaimed. Facts were quick in responding to this quickly
produced impression; a formal deputation was sent to William’s camp; the
archbishops of Canterbury and York, many other prelates and laic
chieftains, the principal citizens of London, the two brothers-in- law of
Harold, Edwin and Morkar, and the young king of yesterday, Edgar Atheling
himself, formed part of it; and they brought to William, Edgar Atheling
his abdication, and all the others their submission, with an express
invitation to William to have himself made king, “for we be wont,” said
they, “to serve a king, and we wish to have a king for lord.” William
received them in presence of the chieftains of his army, and with great
show of moderation in his desires. “Affairs,” said he, “be troubled still;
there be still certain rebels; I desire rather the peace of the kingdom
than the crown; I would that my wife should be crowned with me.” The
Norman chieftains murmured whilst they smiled; and one of them, an
Aquitanian, Aimery de Thouars, cried out, “It is passing modest to ask
soldiers if they wish their chief to be king: soldiers are never, or very
seldom, called to such deliberations: let what we desire be done as soon
as possible.” William yielded to the entreaties of the Saxon deputies and
to the counsels of the Norman chieftains but, prudent still, before going
in person to London, he sent thither some of his officers with orders to
have built there immediately, on the banks of the Thames, at a point which
he indicated, a fort where he might establish himself in safety. That
fort, in the course of time, became the Tower of London.
When William set out, some days afterwards, to make his entry into the
city, he found, on his way to St. Alban’s, the road blocked with huge
trunks of trees recently felled. “What means this barricade in thy
domains?” he demanded of the abbot of St. Alban’s, a Saxon noble. “I did
what was my duty to my birth and mission,” replied the monk: “if others,
of my rank and condition, had done as much, as they ought to and could
have done, thou hadst not penetrated so far into our country.”
On entering London after all these delays and all these precautions,
William fixed, for his coronation, upon Christmas-day, December 25th,
1066. Either by desire of the prelate himself or by William’s own order,
it was not the archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, who presided, according
to custom, at the ceremony; the duty devolved upon the archbishop of York,
Aldred, who had but lately anointed Edgar Atheling. At the appointed hour,
William arrived at Westminster Abbey, the latest work and the burial-place
of Edward the Confessor. The Conqueror marched between two hedges of
Norman soldiers, behind whom stood a crowd of people, cold and sad, though
full of curiosity. A numerous cavalry guarded the approaches to the church
and the quarters adjoining. Two hundred and sixty counts, barons, and
knights of Normandy went in with the duke. Geoffrey, bishop of Coutanees,
demanded in French, of the Normans, if they would that their duke should
take the title of King of the English. The archbishop of York demanded of
the English, in the Saxon tongue, if they would have for king the duke of
Normandy. Noisy acclamations arose in the church and resounded outside.
The soldiery, posted in the neighborhood, took the confused roar for a
symptom of something wrong, and in their suspicious rage set fire to the
neighboring houses. The flames spread rapidly. The people who were
rejoicing in the church caught the alarm, and a multitude of men and women
of every rank flung themselves out of the edifice. Alone and trembling,
the bishops with some clerics and monks remained before the altar and
accomplished the work of anointment upon the king’s head, “himself
trembling,” says the chronicle. Nearly all the rest who were present ran
to the fire, some to extinguish it, others to steal and pillage in the
midst of the consternation. William terminated the ceremony by taking the
usual oath of Saxon kings at their coronation, adding thereto, as of his
own motion, a promise to treat the English people according to their own
laws and as well as they had ever been treated by the best of their own
kings. Then he went forth from the church King of England.
We will pursue no farther the life of William the Conqueror: for
henceforth it belongs to the history of England, not of France. We have
entered, so far as he was concerned, into pretty long details, because we
were bound to get a fair understanding of the event and of the man; not
only because of their lustre at the time, but especially because of the
serious and long-felt consequences entailed upon France, England, and, we
may say, Europe. We do not care just now to trace out those consequences
in all their bearings; but we would like to mark out with precision their
chief features, inasmuch as they exercised, for centuries, a determining
influence upon the destinies of two great nations, and upon the course of
modern civilization.
As to France, the consequences of the conquest of England by the Normans
were clearly pernicious, and they have not yet entirely disappeared. It
was a great evil, as early as the eleventh century, that the duke of
Normandy, one of the great French lords, one of the great vassals of the
king of France, should at the same time become king of England, and thus
receive an accession of rank and power which could not fail to render more
complicated and more stormy his relations with his French suzerain. From
the eleventh to the fourteenth century, from Philip I. to Philip de
Valois, this position gave rise, between the two crowns and the two
states, to questions, to quarrels, to political struggles, and to wars
which were a frequent source of trouble in France to the government and
the people. The evil and the peril became far greater still when, in the
fourteenth century, there arose between France and England, between Philip
de Valois and Edward III., a question touching the succession to the
throne of France and the application or negation of the Salic law. Then
there commenced, between the two crowns and the two peoples, that war
which was to last more than a hundred years, was to bring upon France the
saddest days of her history, and was to be ended only by the inspired
heroism of a young girl who, alone, in the name of her God and His saints,
restored confidence and victory to her king and her country. Joan of Arc,
at the cost of her life, brought to the most glorious conclusion the
longest and bloodiest struggle that has devastated France and sometimes
compromised her glory.
Such events, even when they are over, do not cease to weigh heavily for a
long while upon a people. The struggles between the kings of England,
dukes of Normandy, and the kings of France, and the long war of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for the succession to the throne of
France, engendered what historians have called “the rivalry between France
and England;” and this rivalry, having been admitted as a natural and
inevitable fact, became the permanent incubus and, at divers epochs, the
scourge of French national existence. Undoubtedly there are, between great
and energetic neighbors, different interests and tendencies, which easily
become the seeds of jealousy and strife; but there are also, between such
nations, common interests and common sentiments, which tend to harmony and
peace. The wisdom and ability of governments and of nations themselves are
shown in devoting themselves to making the grounds of harmony and peace
stronger than those of discord and war. Anyhow common sense and moral
sense forbid differences of interests and tendencies to be set up as a
principle upon which to establish general and permanent rivalry, and, by
consequence, a systematic hostility and national enmity. And the further
civilization and the connections between different people proceed with
this development, the more necessary and, at the same time, possible it
becomes to raise the interests and sentiments which would hold them
together above those which would keep them asunder, and to thus found a
policy of reciprocal equity and of peace in place of a policy of hostile
precautions and continual strife. “I have witnessed,” says M. Guizot, “in
the course of my life, both these policies. I have seen the policy of
systematic hostility, the policy practised by the Emperor Napoleon I. with
as much ability and brilliancy as it was capable of, and I have seen it
result in the greatest disaster France ever experienced. And even after
the evidence of its errors and calamities this policy has still left
amongst us deep traces and raised serious obstacles to the policy of
reciprocal equity, liberty, and peace which we labored to support, and of
which the nation felt, though almost against the grain, the justice and
the necessity.” In that feeling we recognize the lamentable results of the
old historic causes which have just been pointed out, and the lasting
perils arising from those blind passions which hurry people away, and keep
them back from their most pressing interests and their most honorable
sentiments.
In spite of appearances to the contrary, and in view of her future
interests, England was, in the eleventh century, by the very fact of the
conquest she underwent, in a better position than France. She was
conquered, it is true, and conquered by a foreign chieftain and a foreign
army; but France also had been, for several centuries previously, a prey
to conquest, and under circumstances much more unfavorable than those
under which the Norman conquest had found and placed England. When the
Goths, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Saxons, and the Normans themselves
invaded and disputed over Gaul, what was the character of the event?
Barbarians, up to that time vagabonds or nearly so, were flooding in upon
populations disorganized and enervated. On the side of the German victors,
no fixity in social life; no general or anything like regular government;
no nation really cemented and constituted; but individuals in a state of
dispersion and of almost absolute independence: on the side of the
vanquished Gallo-Romans, the old political ties dissolved; no strong
power, no vital liberty; the lower classes in slavery, the middle classes
ruined, the upper classes depreciated. Amongst the barbarians society was
scarcely commencing; with the subjects of the Roman empire it no longer
existed; Charlemagne’s attempt to reconstruct it by rallying beneath a new
empire both victors and vanquished was a failure; feudal anarchy was the
first and the necessary step out of barbaric anarchy and towards a renewal
of social order.
It was not so in England, when, in the eleventh century, William
transported thither his government and his army. A people but lately come
out of barbarism, conquered, on that occasion, a people still half
barbarous. Their primitive origin was the same; their institutions were,
if not similar, at any rate analogous; there was no fundamental antagonism
in their habits; the English chieftains lived in their domains an idle,
hunting life, surrounded by their liegemen, just as the Norman barons
lived. Society, amongst both the former and the latter, was founded,
however unrefined and irregular it still was; and neither the former nor
the latter had lost the flavor and the usages of their ancient liberties.
A certain superiority, in point of organization and social discipline,
belonged to the Norman conquerors; but the conquered Anglo- Saxons were
neither in a temper to allow themselves to be enslaved nor out of
condition for defending themselves. The conquest was destined to entail
cruel evils, a long oppression, but it could not bring about either the
dissolution of the two peoples into petty lawless groups, or the permanent
humiliation of one in presence of the other. There were, at one and the
same time, elements of government and resistance, causes of fusion and
unity in the very midst of the struggle.
We are now about to anticipate ages, and get a glimpse, in their
development, of the consequences which attended this difference, so
profound, in the position of France and of England, at the time of the
formation of the two states.
In England, immediately after the Norman conquest, two general forces are
confronted, those, to wit, of the two peoples. The Anglo-Saxon people is
attached to its ancient institutions, a mixture of feudalism and liberty,
which become its security. The Norman army assumes organization on English
soil according to the feudal system which had been its own in Normandy. A
principle of authority and a principle of resistance thus exist, from the
very first, in the community and in the government. Before long the
principle of resistance gets displaced; the strife between the peoples
continues; but a new struggle arises between the Norman king and his
barons. The Norman kingship, strong in its growth, would fain become
tyrannical; but its tyranny encounters a resistance, also strong, since
the necessity for defending themselves against the Anglo-Saxons has caused
the Norman barons to take up the practice of acting in concert, and has
not permitted them to set themselves up as petty, isolated sovereigns. The
spirit of association receives development in England: the ancient
institutions have maintained it amongst the English landholders, and the
inadequacy of individual resistance has made it prevalent amongst the
Norman barons. The unity which springs from community of interests and
from junction of forces amongst equals becomes a counter-poise to the
unity of the sovereign power. To sustain the struggle with success, the
aristocratic coalition formed against the tyrannical kingship has needed
the assistance of the landed proprietors, great and small, English and
Norman, and it has not been able to dispense with getting their rights
recognized as well as its own. Meanwhile the struggle is becoming
complicated; there is a division of parties; a portion of the barons rally
round the threatened kingship; sometimes it is the feudal aristocracy, and
sometimes it is the king that summons and sees flocking to the rescue the
common people, first of the country, then of the towns. The democratic
element thus penetrates into and keeps growing in both society and
government, at one time quietly and through the stolid influence of
necessity, at another noisily and by means of revolutions, powerful
indeed, but nevertheless restrained within certain limits. The fusion of
the two peoples and the different social classes is little by little
attaining accomplishment; it is little by little bringing about the
perfect formation of representative government with its various component
parts, royalty, aristocracy, and democracy, each invested with the rights
and the strength necessary for their functions. The end of the struggle
has been arrived at; constitutional monarchy is founded; by the triumph of
their language and of their primitive liberties the English have conquered
their conquerors. It is written in her history, and especially in her
history at the date of the eleventh century, how England found her point
of departure and her first elements of success in the long labor she
performed, in order to arrive, in 1688, at a free, and, in our days, at a
liberal government.
France pursued her end by other means and in the teeth of other fortunes.
She always desired and always sought for free government under the form of
constitutional monarchy; and in following her history, step by step, there
will be seen, often disappearing and ever re-appearing, the efforts made
by the country for the accomplishment of her hope. Why then did not France
sooner and more completely attain what she had so often attempted? Amongst
the different causes of this long miscalculation, we will dwell for the
present only on the historical reason just now indicated: France did not
find, as England did, in the primitive elements of French society the
conditions and means of the political system to which she never ceased to
aspire. In order to obtain the moderate measure of internal order, without
which society could not exist; in order to insure the progress of her
civil laws and her material civilization; in order even to enjoy those
pleasures of the mind for which she thirsts so much,— France was
constantly obliged to have recourse to the kingly authority and to that
almost absolute monarchy which was far from satisfying her even when she
could not do without it, and when she worshipped it with an enthusiasm
rather literary than political, as was the case under Louis XIV. It was
through the refined rather than profound development of her civilization,
and through the zeal of her intellectual movement, that France was at
length impelled not only towards the political system to which she had so
long aspired, but into the boundless ambition of the unlimited revolution
which she brought about and with which she inoculated all Europe. It is in
the first steps towards the formation of the two societies, French and
English, and in the elements, so very different, of their earliest
existence, that we find the principal cause for their long-continued
diversity in institutions and destinies.
“In 1823, forty-seven years ago, after having studied,” says M. Guizot,
“in my Essays upon a Comparative History of France and England, the great
fact which we have just now attempted to make clearly understood, I
concluded my labor by saying, ‘Before our revolution, this difference
between the political fates of France and England might have saddened a
French-man: but now, in spite of the evils we have suffered and in spite
of those we shall yet, perhaps, suffer, there is no room, so far as we are
concerned, for such sadness. The advances of social equality and the
enlightenments of civilization in France preceded political liberty; and
it will thus be the more general and the purer. France may reflect,
without regret, upon any history: her own has always been glorious, and
the future promised to her will assuredly recompense her for all she has
hitherto lacked.’ In 1870, after the experiences and notwithstanding the
sorrows of my long life, I have still confidence in our country’s future.
Never be it forgotten that God helps only those who help themselves and
who deserve his aid.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE CRUSADES, THEIR ORIGIN AND THEIR SUCCESS.
Amongst the great events of European history, none was for a longer time
in preparation or more naturally brought about than the Crusades.
Christianity, from her earliest days, had seen in Jerusalem her sacred
cradle; it had been, in past times, the home of her ancestors, the Jews,
and the centre of their history; and, afterwards, the scene of the life,
death, and resurrection of her Divine Founder. Jerusalem became, more and
more, the Holy City. To go to Jerusalem, to visit the Mount of Olives,
Calvary, and the tomb of Jesus, was, in their most evil days, and in the
midst of their obscurity and their martyrdoms, a pious passion with the
early Christians. When, under Constantine, Christianity had ascended from
the cross to the throne, Jerusalem had fresh attractions for Christian
faith and Christian curiosity. Temples covered and surrounded the Holy
Sepulchre; and at Bethlehem, Nazareth, Mount Tabor, and nearly all the
places which Jesus had consecrated by His presence and His miracles were
seen to rise up churches, chapels, and monuments dedicated to the memory
of them. The Emperor Constantine’s mother, St. Helena, was, at
seventy-eight years of age, the first royal pilgrim to the holy places.
After the Pagan revival, vainly attempted by the Emperor Julian, the
number and zeal of the Christian visitors to Jerusalem were redoubled. At
the beginning of the fifth century, St. Jerome wrote, from his retreat at
Bethlehem, that Judea overflowed with pilgrims, and that, round about the
Holy Sepulchre, were heard sung, in divers tongues, the praises of the
Lord. He, however, gave but scant encouragement to his friends to make the
trip. “The court of heaven,” he wrote to St. Paulinus, “is as open in
Britain as at Jerusalem;” and the disorder which sometimes accompanied the
numerous assemblages of pilgrims became such that several of the most
illustrious fathers of the Church, and amongst others St. Augustine and
St. Gregory of Nyssa, exerted themselves to dissuade the faithful. “Take
no thought,” said Augustine, “for long voyages; go where your faith is; it
is not by ship, but by love, that we go to Him who is everywhere.”
Events soon rendered the pilgrimage to Jerusalem difficult, and for some
time impossible. At the commencement of the seventh century, the Greek
empire was at war with the sovereigns of Persia, successors of Cyrus and
chiefs of the religion of Zoroaster. One of them, Khosroes II., invaded
Judea, took Jerusalem, led away captive the inhabitants, together with
their patriarch, Zacharias, and even carried off to Persia the precious
relic which was regarded as the wood of the true cross, and which had been
discovered, nearly three centuries before, by the Empress Helena, whilst
excavations were making on Calvary for the erection of the church of the
Holy Sepulchre. But fourteen years later, after several victories over the
Persians, the Greek emperor, Heraclius, retook Jerusalem, and re-entered
Constantinople in triumph with the coffer containing the sacred relic. He
next year (in 629) carried it back to Jerusalem, and bore it upon his own
shoulders to the top of Calvary; and on this occasion was instituted the
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Great was the joy in
Christendom; and the pilgrimages to Jerusalem resumed their course.
But precisely at this epoch there appeared an enemy far more formidable
for the Christians than the sectaries of Zoroaster. In 622 Mahomet founded
Islamism; and some years after his death, in 638, the second of the
khalifs, his successors, Omar, sent two of his generals, Khaled and
Abou-Obeidah, to take Jerusalem. For to the Mussulmans, also, Jerusalem
was a holy city. Mahomet, it was said, had been thither; it was thence,
indeed, that he had started on his nocturnal ascent to heaven. On
approaching the walls, the Arabs repeated these words from the Koran:
“Enter we the holy land which God hath promised us.” The siege lasted four
months. The Christians at last surrendered, but only to Omar in person,
who came from Medina to receive their submission. A capitulation concluded
with their patriarch, Sophronius, guaranteed them their lives, their
property, and their churches. “When the draft of the treaty was completed,
Omar said to the patriarch, ‘Conduct me to the temple of David.’ Omar
entered Jerusalem preceded by the patriarch, and followed by four thousand
warriors, followers of the Prophet, wearing no other arms but their
swords. Sophronius took him, first of all, to the Church of the
Resurrection. ‘Be-hold,’ said he, ‘the temple of David.’ ‘Thou sayest not
true,’ said Omar, after a few moments’ reflection; ‘the Prophet gave me a
description of the temple of David, and it tallieth not with the building
I now see.’ The patriarch then conducted him to the Church of Sion.
‘Here,’ said he, ‘is the temple of David.’ ‘It is a lie,’ rejoined Omar,
and went his way, directing his steps towards the gate named Bab-Mohammed.
The spot on which now stands the Mosque of Omar was so encumbered with
filth that the steps leading to the street were covered with it, and that
the rubbish reached almost to the top of the vault. ‘You can only get in
here by crawling,’ said the patriarch. ‘Be it so,’ answered Omar. The
patriarch went first; Omar, with his people, followed; and they arrived at
the space which at this day forms the forecourt of the mosque. There every
one could stand upright. After having turned his eyes to right and left,
and attentively examined the place, ‘Allah alchbar!’ cried Omar; here is
the temple of David, described to me by the Prophet.’”
He found the Sakhra (the rock which forms the summit of Mount Moriah,) and
which, left alone after the different destructions of the different
temples, became the theme of a multitude of traditions and legends,
(Jewish and Mussulman) covered with filth, heaped up there by the
Christians through hatred of the Jews. “Omar spread his cloak over the
rock, and began to sweep it; and all the Mussulmans in his train followed
his example.” (Le Temple de Jerusalem, a monograph, pp. 73-75, by
Count Melchior de Vogue, ch. vi.) The Mosque of Omar rose up on the site
of Solomon’s temple. The Christians retained the practice of their
religion in their churches, but they were obliged to conceal their crosses
and their sacred books. The bell no longer summoned the faithful to
prayer; and the pomp of ceremonies was forbidden them. It was far worse
when Omar, the most moderate of Mussulman fanatics, had left Jerusalem.
The faithful were driven from their houses, and insulted in their
churches; additions were made to the tribute they had to pay to the new
masters of Palestine; they were prohibited from carrying arms and riding
on horseback; a girdle of leather, which they might not lay aside, was
their badge of servitude; their conquerors brooked not even that the
Christians should speak the Arab tongue, reserved for disciples of the
Koran; and the Christian people of Jerusalem had not the right of
nominating their own patriarch without the intervention of the Saracens.
From the seventh to the eleventh century the situation remained very much
the same. The Mussulmans, khalifs of Egypt or Persia, continued in
possession of Jerusalem; and the Christians, native inhabitants or foreign
visitors, continued to be oppressed, harassed, and humiliated there. At
two periods their condition was temporarily better. At the commencement of
the ninth century, Charlemagne reached even there with the greatness of
his mind and of his power. “It was not only in his own land and his own
kingdom,” says Eginhard, “that he scattered those gratuitous largesses
which the Greeks call alms; but beyond the seas, in Syria, in Egypt, in
Africa, at Jerusalem, at Alexandria, at Carthage, wherever he knew that
there were Christians living in poverty, he had compassion on their
misery, and he delighted to send them money.” In one of his capitularies
of the year 810 we find this paragraph: “Alms to be sent to Jerusalem to
repair the churches of God.” “If Charlemagne was so careful to seek the
friendship of the kings beyond the seas, it was above all in order to
obtain for the Christians living under their rule help and relief. . . .
He kept up so close a friendship with Haroun-al- Raschid, king of Persia,
that this prince preferred his good graces to the alliance of the
sovereigns of the earth. Accordingly, when the ambassadors whom Charles
had sent, with presents, to visit the sacred tomb of our divine Saviour,
and the site of the resurrection, presented themselves before him, and
expounded to him their master’s wish, Haroun did not content himself with
entertaining Charles’s request; he wished, besides, to give up to him the
complete proprietorship of those places hallowed by the certification of
our redemption,” and he sent him, with the most magnificent presents, the
keys of the Holy Sepulchre. At the end of the same century, another
Christian sovereign, far less powerful and less famous, John Zimisces,
emperor of Constantinople, in a war against the Mussulmans of Asia,
penetrated into Galilee, made himself master of Tiberias, Nazareth, and
Mount Tabor, received a deputation which brought him the keys of
Jerusalem, “and we have placed,” he says himself, “garrisons in all the
district lately subjected to our rule.” These were but strokes of foreign
intervention, giving the Christians of Jerusalem gleams of hope rather
than lasting diminution of their miseries. However, it is certain that,
during this epoch, pilgrimages multiplied, and were often accomplished
without obstacle. It was from France, England, and Italy that most of the
pilgrims went, and some of them wrote, or caused to be written, an account
of their trip,—amongst others the Italian Saint Valentine, the
English Saint Willibald, and the French Bishop Saint Arculf, who had as
companion a Burgundian hermit named Peter, a singular resemblance in
quality and name to the zealous apostle of the Crusade three centuries
later. The most curious of these narratives is that of a French monk,
Bernard, a pilgrim of about the year 870. “There is at Jerusalem,” says
he, “a hospice where admittance is given to all who come to visit the
place for devotion’s sake, and who speak the Roman tongue; a church,
dedicated to St. Mary, is hard by the hospice, and possesseth a very noble
library, which it oweth to the zeal of the Emperor Charles the Great.”
This pious establishment had attached to it fields, vineyards, and a
garden situated in the valley of Jehosaphat.
But whilst there were a few isolated cases of Christians thus going to
satisfy in the East their pious and inquisitive zeal, the Mussulmans,
equally ardent as believers and as warriors, carried Westward their creed
and their arms, established themselves in Spain, penetrated to the very
heart of France, and brought on, between Islamism and Christianity, that
grand struggle in which Charles Martel gained, at Poitiers, the victory
for the Cross. It was really a definitive victory, and yet it did not end
the struggle; the Mussulmans remained masters in Spain, and continued to
infest Southern France, Italy, and Sicily, preserving even, at certain
points, posts which they used as starting-points for distant ravages. Far
then from calming down and resulting in pacific relations, the hostility
between the two races became more and more active and determined;
everywhere they opposed, fought, and oppressed one another, inflamed one
against the other by the double feelings of faith and ambition, hatred and
fear. To this general state of affairs came to be added, about the end of
the tenth and beginning of the eleventh century, incidents best calculated
to aggravate the evil. Hakem, khalif of Egypt from 996 to 1021, persecuted
the Christians, especially at Jerusalem, with all the violence of a
fanatic and all the capriciousness of a despot. He ordered them to wear
upon their necks a wooden cross five pounds in weight; he forbade them to
ride on any animal but mules or asses; and, without assigning any motive
for his acts, he confiscated their goods and carried off their children.
It was told to him one day that, when the Christians assembled in the
temple at Jerusalem to celebrate Easter, the priests of the church rubbed
balsam-oil upon the iron chain which held up the lamp over the tomb of
Christ, and afterwards set fire, from the roof, to the end of the chain;
the fire stole down to the wick of the lamp and lighted it; then they
shouted with admiration, as if fire from heaven had come down upon the
tomb, and they glorified their faith. Hakem ordered the instant demolition
of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and it was accordingly demolished.
Another time a dead dog had been laid at the door of a mosque; and the
multitude accused the Christians of this insult. Hakem ordered them all to
be put to death. The soldiers were preparing to execute the order when a
young Christian said to his friends, “It were too grievous that the whole
Church should perish; it were better that one should die for all; only
promise to bless my memory year by year.” He proclaimed himself alone to
blame for the insult, and was accordingly alone put to death. It is from
this story of the historian William of Tyre, that Tasso, in his Jerusalem
Delivered, has drawn the admirable episode of Olindo and Sophronia; a
fine example, and not the only one, of an act of tyranny and an act of
virtue inspiring a great poet with the idea of a masterpiece. “All the
deeds of Hakem were without motive,” says the Arab historian Makrisi, “and
the dreams suggested to him by his frenzy are incapable of reasonable
interpretation.”
These and many other similar stories reached the West, spread amongst the
Christian people and roused them to pity for their brethren in the East
and to wrath against the oppressors. And it was at a critical period, in
the midst of the pious alarms and desires of atonement excited by the
expectation of the end of the world a thousand years after the coming of
the Lord, that the Christian population saw this way opened for purchasing
remission of their sins by delivering other Christians from suffering, and
by avenging the wrongs of their creed. On all sides arose challenges and
appeals to the warlike ardor of the faithful. The greatest mind of the
age, Gerbert, who had become Pope Sylvester II., constituted himself
interpreter of the popular feeling. He wrote, in the name of the Church of
Jerusalem, a letter addressed to the universal Church: “To work, then,
soldier of Christ! Be our standard-bearer and our champion! And if with
arms thou canst not do so, aid us with thy words, thy wealth. What is it,
pray, that thou givest, and to whom, pray, dost thou give? Of thine
abundance thou givest a small matter, and thou givest to Him who hath
freely given thee all thou possessest; but He will not accept freely that
which thou shalt give; for he will multiply thine offering and will pay it
back to thee hereafter.” Some years after Gerbert, another great mind, the
greatest among the popes of the middle ages, Gregory VII., proclaimed an
expedition, at the head of which he would place himself, to go and deliver
Jerusalem and the Christians of the East from the insults and the tyranny
of the infidels.
Such being the condition of facts and minds, pilgrimages to Jerusalem
became, from the ninth to the eleventh century, more and more numerous and
considerable. “It would never have been believed,” says the contemporary
chronicler Raoul Glaber, “that the Holy Sepulchre could attract so
prodigious an influx. First the lower classes, then the middle, afterwards
the most potent kings, the counts, the marquises, the prelates, and
lastly, what had never heretofore been seen, many women, noble or humble,
undertook this pilgrimage.” In 1026, William Traillefer, count of
Angouleme; in 1028, 1035, and 1039, Foulques the Black, count of Anjou; in
1035, Robert the Magnificent, duke of Normandy, father of William the
Conqueror; in 1086, Robert the Frison, count of Flanders; and many other
great feudal lords quitted their estates, or, rather, their states, to go
and—not deliver, not conquer, but—simply visit the Holy Land.
It was not long before great numbers were joined to great names. In 1054,
Liedbert, bishop of Cambrai, started for Jerusalem with a following of
three thousand Picard or Flemish pilgrims; and in 1064, the archbishop of
Mayence and the bishops of Spire, Cologne, Bamberg, and Utrecht set out on
their way from the borders of the Rhine with more than ten thousand
Christians behind them. After having passed through Germany, Hungary,
Bulgaria, Thrace, Constantinople, Asia Minor, and Syria, they were
attacked in Palestine by hordes of Arabs, were forced to take refuge in
the ruins of an old castle, and were reduced to capitulation; and when at
last, “preceded by the rumors of their battles and their perils, they
arrived at Jerusalem, they were received in triumph by the patriarch, and
were conducted, to the sound of timbrels and with the flare of torches, to
the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The misery they had fallen into excited
the pity of the Christians of Asia; and, after having lost more than three
thousand of their comrades, they returned to Europe to relate their tragic
adventures and the dangers of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.” (Histoire
des Croisades, by M. Michaud, t. i. p. 62.)
Amidst this agitation of Western Christendom, in 1076, two years after
Pope Gregory VII. had proclaimed his approaching expedition to the Holy
Land, news arrived in Europe to the effect that the most barbarous of
Asiatics and of Mussulmans, the Turks, after having first served and then
ruled the khalifs of Persia, and afterwards conquered the greater part of
the Persian empire, had hurled themselves upon the Greek empire, invaded
Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, and lately taken Jerusalem, where they
practised against the Christians, old inhabitants or foreign visitors,
priests and worshippers, dreadful cruelties and intolerable exactions,
worse than those of the Persian or Egyptian khalifs.
It often happens that popular emotions, however profound and general,
remain barren, just as in the vegetable world many sprouts appear at the
surface of the soil and die without having grown and fructified. It is not
sufficient for the bringing about of great events and practical results
that popular aspirations should be merely manifested; it is necessary,
further, that some great soul, some powerful will, should make itself the
organ and agent of the public sentiment, and bring it to fecundity by
becoming its personification. The Christian passion, in the eleventh
century, for the deliverance of Jerusalem and the triumph of the Cross was
fortunate in this respect. An obscure pilgrim, at first a soldier, then a
married man and father of several children, then a monk and a vowed
recluse, Peter the Hermit, who was born in the neighborhood of Amiens,
about 1030, had gone, as so many others had, to Jerusalem “to say his
prayers there.” Struck disconsolate at the sight of the sufferings and
insults undergone by the Christians, he had an interview with Simeon,
patriarch of Jerusalem, who “recognizing in him a man of discretion and
full of experience in affairs of the world, set before him in detail all
the evils with which the people of God, in the holy city, were afflicted.
‘Holy father,’ said Peter to him, ‘if the Roman Church and the princes of
the West were informed, by a man of energy and worthy of belief, of all
your calamities, of a surety they would essay to apply some remedy thereto
by word and deed. Write, then, to our lord the pope and to the Roman
Church, and to the kings and princes of the West, and strengthen your
written testimony by the authority of your seal. As for me, I shrink not
from taking upon me a task for the salvation of my soul; and with the help
of the Lord I am ready to go and seek out all of them, solicit them, show
unto them the immensity of your troubles, and pray them all to hasten on
the day of your relief.’” The patriarch eagerly accepted the pilgrim’s
offer; and Peter set out, going first of all to Rome, where he handed to
Pope Urban II. the patriarch’s letters, and commenced in that quarter his
mission of zeal. The pope promised him not only support, but active
co-operation when the propitious moment for it should arrive. Peter set to
work, being still the pilgrim everywhere, in Europe, as well as at
Jerusalem. “He was a man of very small stature, and his outside made but a
very poor appearance; yet superior powers swayed this miserable body; he
had a quick intellect and a penetrating eye, and he spoke with ease and
fluency. . . . We saw him at that time,” says his contemporary Guibert de
Nogent, “scouring city and town, and preaching everywhere; the people
crowded round him, heaped presents upon him, and celebrated his sanctity
by such great praises that I remember not that like honor was ever
rendered to any other person. He displayed great generosity in the
disposal of all things that were given him. He restored wives to their
husbands, not without the addition of gifts from himself, and he
re-established, with marvellous authority, peace and good understanding
between those who had been at variance. In all that he did or said he
seemed to have in him something divine, insomuch that people went so far
as to pluck hairs from his mule to keep as relics. In the open air he wore
a woollen tunic, and over it a serge cloak which came down to his heels;
he had his arms and feet bare; he ate little or no bread, and lived
chiefly on wine and fish.”
In 1095, after the preaching errantry of Peter the Hermit, Pope Urban II.
was at Clermont, in Auvergne, presiding at the grand council, at which
thirteen archbishops and two hundred and five bishops or abbots were met
together, with so many princes and lay-lords, that “about the middle of
the month of November the towns and the villages of the neighborhood were
full of people, and divers were constrained to have their tents and
pavilions set up amidst the fields and meadows, notwithstanding that the
season and the country were cold to an extreme.” The first nine sessions
of the council were devoted to the affairs of the Church in the West; but
at the tenth Jerusalem and the Christians of the East became the subject
of deliberation. The Pope went out of the church wherein the Council was
assembled and mounted a platform erected upon a vast open space in the
midst of the throng. Peter the Hermit, standing at his side, spoke first,
and told the story of his sojourn at Jerusalem, all he had seen of the
miseries and humiliations of the Christians, and all he himself had
suffered there, for he had been made to pay tribute for admission into the
Holy City, and for gazing upon the spectacle of the exactions, insults,
and tortures he was recounting. After him Pope Urban II. spoke, in the
French tongue, no doubt, as Peter had spoken, for he was himself a
Frenchman, as the majority of those present were, grandees and populace.
He made a long speech, entertaining upon the most painful details
connected with the sufferings of the Christians of Jerusalem, “that royal
city which the Redeemer of the human race had made illustrious by His
coming, had honored by His residence, had hallowed by His passion, had
purchased by His death, had distinguished by His burial. She now demands
of you her deliverance . . . men of France, men from beyond the mountains,
nations chosen and beloved of God, right valiant knights, recall the
virtues of your ancestors, the virtue and greatness of King Charlemagne
and your other kings; it is from you above all that Jerusalem awaits the
help she invokes, for to you, above all nations, God has vouchsafed signal
glory in arms. Take ye, then, the road to Jerusalem for the remission of
your sins, and depart assured of the imperishable glory which awaits you
in the kingdom of heaven.”
From the midst of the throng arose one prolonged and general shout, “God
willeth it! God willeth it!” The Pope paused for a moment; and then,
making a sign with his hand as if to ask for silence, he continued, “If
the Lord God were not in your souls, ye would not all have uttered the
same words. In the battle, then, be those your war-cry, those words that
came from God; in the army of the Lord let nought be heard but that one
shout, ‘God willeth it! God willeth it!’ We ordain not, and we advise not,
that the journey be undertaken by the old or the weak, or such as be not
suited for arms, and let not women set out without their husbands or their
brothers; let the rich help the poor; nor priests nor clerks may go
without the leave of their bishops; and no layman shall commence the march
save with the blessing of his pastor. Whosoever hath a wish to enter upon
this pilgrimage, let him wear upon his brow or his breast the cross of the
Lord, and let him, who, in accomplishment of his desire, shall be willing
to march away, place the cross behind him, between his shoulders; for thus
he will fulfil the precept of the Lord, who said, ‘He that doth not take
up his cross and follow Me, is not worthy of Me.’”
The enthusiasm was general and contagious, as the first shout of the crowd
had been; and a pious prelate, Adhemar, bishop of Puy, was the first to
receive the cross from the Pope’s hands. It was of red cloth or silk, sewn
upon the right shoulder of the coat or cloak, or fastened on the front of
the helmet. The crowd dispersed to assume it and spread it.
Religious enthusiasm was not the only, but the first and the determining
motive of the crusade. It is to the honor of humanity, and especially to
the honor of the French nation, that it is accessible to the sudden sway
of a moral and disinterested sentiment, and resolves, without prevision as
well as without premeditation, upon acts which decide, for many a long
year, the course and the fate of a generation, and, it may be, of a whole
people. We have seen in our own day, in the conduct of populace, national
assemblies, and armies, under the impulse not any longer of religious
feeling, but of political and social agitation, France thus giving herself
up to the rush of sentiments, generous indeed and pure, but without the
least forecast touching the consequences of the ideas which inspired them
or the acts which they entailed. It is with nations as with armies; the
side of glory is that of danger; and great works are wrought at a heavy
cost, not only of happiness, but also of virtue. It would be wrong,
nevertheless, to lack respect for and to speak evil of enthusiasm: it not
only bears witness to the grandeur of human nature, it justly holds its
place and exercises its noble influence in the course of the great events
which move across the scene of human errors and vices, according to the
vast and inscrutable design of trod. It is quite certain that the
crusaders of the eleventh century, in their haste to deliver Jerusalem
from the Mussulmans, were far from foreseeing that, a few centuries after
their triumph, Jerusalem and the Christian East would fall again beneath
the yoke of the Mussulmans and their barbaric stagnation; and this future,
had they caught but a glimpse of it, would doubtless have chilled their
zeal. But it is not a whit the less certain that, in view of the end,
their labor was not in vain; for, in the panorama of the world’s history,
the crusades marked the date of the arrest of Islamism, and powerfully
contributed to the decisive preponderance of Christian civilization.
To religious enthusiasm there was joined another motive less
disinterested, but natural and legitimate, which was the still very vivid
recollection of the evils caused to the Christians of the West by the
Mussulman invasions in Spain, France, and Italy, and the fear of seeing
them begin again. Instinctively war was carried to the East to keep it
from the West, just as Charlemagne had invaded and conquered the country
of the Saxons to put an end to their inroads upon the Franks. And this
prudent plan availed not only to give the Christians of the West a hope of
security, it afforded them the pleasure of vengeance. They were about to
pay back alarm for alarm, and evil for evil, to the enemy from whom they
had suffered in the same way; hatred and pride, as well as piety, obtained
satisfaction.
There is moreover great motive power in a spirit of enterprise and a taste
for adventure. Care-for-nothingness is one of man-kind’s chief diseases,
and if it plays so conspicuous a part in comparatively enlightened and
favored communities, amidst the labors and the enjoyments of an advanced
civilization, its influence was certainly not less in times of
intellectual sloth and harshly monotonous existence. To escape therefrom,
to satisfy in some sort the energy and curiosity inherent in man, the
people of the eleventh century had scarcely any resource but war, with its
excitement and distant excursions into unknown regions. Thither rushed the
masses of the people, whilst the minds which were eager, above everything,
for intellectual movement and for knowledge, thronged, on the mountain of
St. Genevieve, to the lectures of Abelard. Need of variety and novelty,
and an instinctive desire to extend their views and enliven their
existence, probably made as many crusaders as the feeling against the
Mussulmans and the promptings of piety.
The Council of Clermont, at its closing on the 28th of November, 1095, had
fixed the month of August in the following year, and the feast of the
Assumption, for the departure of the crusaders for the Holy Land; but the
people’s impatience did not brook this waiting, short as it was in view of
the greatness and difficulties of the enterprise. As early as the 8th of
March, 1096, and in the course of the spring three mobs rather than armies
set out on the crusade, with a strength, it is said, of eighty or one
hundred thousand persons in one case, and of fifteen or twenty thousand in
the other two. Persons, not men, for there were amongst them many women
and children, whole families, in fact, who had left their villages,
without organization and without provisions, calculating that they would
be competent to find their own way, and that He who feeds the young ravens
would not suffer to die of want pilgrims wearing His cross. Whenever, on
their road, a town came in sight, the children asked if that were
Jerusalem. The first of these mobs had for its head Peter the Hermit
himself, and a Burgundian knight called Walter Havenought; the
second had a German priest named Gottschalk; and the third a Count Emico,
of Leiningen, potent in the neighborhood of Mayence. It is wrong to call
them heads, for they were really nothing of the kind; their authority was
rejected, at one time as tyrannical, at another as useless. “The
grasshoppers,” was the saying amongst them in the words of Solomon’s
proverbs, “have no king, and yet they go in companies.” In crossing
Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the provinces of the Greek empire, these
companies, urged on by their brutal passions or by their necessities and
material wants, abandoned themselves to such irregularities that, as they
went, princes and peoples, instead of welcoming them as Christians, came
to treat them as enemies, of whom it was necessary to get rid at any
price. Peter the Hermit and Gottschalk made honorable and sincere efforts
to check the excesses of their following, which were a source of so much
danger; but Count Emico, on the contrary, says William of Tyre, “himself
took part in the plunder, and incited his comrades to crime.” Thus, at one
time taking the offensive, at another compelled to defend themselves
against the attacks of the justly irritated inhabitants, these three
immense companies of pilgrims, these disorderly volunteers, with great
difficulty arrived, after enormous losses, at the gates of Constantinople.
Either through fear or through pity, the Greek emperor, Alexis (or
Alexius) Comnenus, permitted them to pitch their camp there; “but before
long, plenty, idleness, and the sight of the riches of Constantinople
brought once more into the camp license, indiscipline, and a thirst after
brigandage. Whilst awaiting the war against the Mussulmans, the pilgrims
pillaged the houses, the palaces, and even the churches in the outskirts
of Byzantium. To deliver his capital from these destructive guests, Alexis
furnished them with vessels, and got them shipped off across the
Bosphorus.”
Whilst the crusade was commencing under these sad auspices, chieftains of
more sense and better obeyed were preparing to give it another character
and superior fortunes. Two great and real armies were forming in the
north, the centre, and the south of France, and a third in Italy, amongst
the Norman knights who had founded there the kingdom of Naples and Sicily,
just before their countryman, William the Bastard, conquered England. The
first of these armies had for its chief, Godfrey de Bouillon, duke of
Lorraine, whom all his contemporaries have described as the model of a
gallant and pious knight. He was the son of Eustace II., count of
Boulogne, and “the lustre of nobility,” says Raoul of Caen, chronicler of
his times, “was enhanced in his case by the splendor of the most exalted
virtues, as well in affairs of the world as of heaven. As to the latter,
he distinguished himself by his generosity towards the poor, and his pity
for those who had committed faults. Furthermore, his humility, his extreme
gentleness, his moderation, his justice, and his chastity were great; he
shone as a light amongst the monks, even more than as a duke amongst the
knights. And, nevertheless, he could also do the things which are of this
world, fight, marshal the ranks, and extend by arms the domains of the
Church. In his boyhood he learned to be first, or one of the first, to
strike the foe; in youth he made it his habitual practice; and in
advancing age he forgot it never. He was so perfectly the son of the
warlike Count Eustace, and of his mother, Ida de Bouillon, a woman full of
piety, and versed in literature, that at sight of him even a rival would
have been forced to say of him, ‘For zeal in war, behold his father; for
serving God, behold his mother.’ The second army, consisting chiefly of
crusaders from Southern France, marched under the orders of Raymond IV.,
count of Toulouse, the oldest chieftain of the crusade, who still,
however, united the ardor of youth with the experience of ripe age and the
stubbornness of the graybeard. At the side of the Cid he had fought, and
more than once beaten the Moors in Spain. He took with him to the East his
third wife, Elvira, daughter of Alphonso VI., king of Castile, as well as
a very young child he had by her, and he had made a vow, which he
fulfilled, that he would return no more to his country, and would fight
the infidels to the end of his days, in expiation of his sins. He was
discreet though haughty, and not only the richest but the most economical
of the crusader-chiefs: “Accordingly,” says Raoul of Caen, “when all the
rest had spent their money, the riches of Count Raymond made him still
more distinguished. The people of Provence, who formed his following, did
not lavish their resources, but studied economy even more than glory,” and
“his army,” adds Guibert of Nogent, “showed no inferiority to any other,
save so far as it is possible to reproach the inhabitants of Provence
touching their excessive loquacity.”
Bohemond, prince of Tarento, commanded the third army, composed
principally of Italians and warriors of various origins come to Italy to
share in the exploits and fortunes of his father, the celebrated Robert
Guiscard, founder of the Norman kingdom of Naples, who was at one time the
foe, and at another the defender, of Pope Gregory VII., and who died in
the island of Cephalonia just as he was preparing to attempt the conquest
of Constantinople. Bohemond had neither less ambition nor less courage and
ability than his father. “His appearance,” says Anna Comnena, “impressed
the eye as much as his reputation astounded the mind; his height surpassed
that of all his comrades; his blue eyes gleamed readily with pride and
anger; when he spoke you would have said he had made eloquence his study;
and when he showed himself in armor, you might have believed that he had
never done aught but handle lance and sword. Brought up in the school of
Norman heroes, be concealed calculations of policy beneath the exterior of
force, and, although he was of a haughty disposition, he knew how to be
blind to a wrong when there was nothing to be gained by avenging it. He
had learned from his father to regard as foes all whose dominions and
riches he coveted; and he was not restrained by fear of God, or by man’s
opinions, or by his own oaths. It was not the deliverance of the tomb of
Christ which fired his zeal or decided him upon taking up the cross; but,
as he had vowed eternal enmity to the Greek emperors, he smiled at the
idea of traversing their empire at the head of an army, and, full of
confidence in his fortunes, he hoped to make for himself a kingdom before
arriving at Jerusalem.”
Bohemond had as friend and faithful comrade his cousin Tancred de
Hauteville, great-grandson, through his mother, Emma, of Robert Guiscard,
and, according to all his contemporaries, the type of a perfect Christian
knight, neither more nor less. “From his boyhood,” says Raoul of Caen, his
servitor before becoming his biographer, “he surpassed the young by his
skill in the management of arms, and the old by the strictness of his
morals. He disdained to speak ill of whoever it might be, even when ill
had been spoken of himself. About himself he would say nought, but he had
an insatiable desire to give cause for talking thereof. Glory was the only
passion that moved that young soul; yet was it disquieted within him, and
he suffered great anxiety from thinking that his knightly combats seemed
contrary to the precepts of the Lord. The Lord bids us give our coat and
our cloak to him who would take them from us; whereas the knight’s part is
to strip all that remains from him from whom he hath already taken his
coat and his cloak. These contradictory principles benumbed sometimes the
courage of this man so full of propriety; but when the declaration of Pope
Urban had assured remission of all their sins to all Christians who should
go and fight the Gentiles, then Tancred awoke in some sort from his dream,
and this new opportunity fired him with a zeal which cannot be expressed.
He therefore made preparations for his departure; but, accustomed from his
infancy to give to others before thinking of himself, he entered upon no
great outlay, but contented himself with collecting in sufficient quantity
knightly arms, horses, mules, and provisions necessary for his company.”
With these four chieftains, who have remained illustrious in history,—
that grave wherein small reputations are extinguished,—were
associated, for the deliverance of the Holy Land, a throng of feudal
lords, some powerful as well as valiant, others valiant but simple
knights; Hugh, count of Vermaudois, brother of Philip I., king of France;
Robert of Normandy, called Shorthose, son of William the Conqueror;
Robert, count of Flanders; Stephen, count of Blois; Raimbault, count of
Orange; Baldwin, count of Hainault; Raoul of Beaugency; Gerard of
Roussillon, and many others whose names contemporary chroniclers and
learned moderns have gathered together. Not one of the reigning sovereigns
of Europe, kings or emperors, of France, England, Spain, or Germany, took
part in the first crusade. It was the feudal nation, great and small,
castle owners and populace, who rose in mass for the deliverance of
Jerusalem and the honor of Christendom.
These three great armies of crusaders got on the march from August to
October, 1096, wending their way, Godfrey de Bouillon by Germany, Hungary,
and Bulgaria; Bohemond by the south of Italy and the Mediterranean; and
Count Raymond of Toulouse by Northern Italy, Friuli, and Dalmatia. They
arrived one after the other in the empire of the East and at the gates of
Constantinople. Godfrey de Bouillon was the first to appear there, and the
Emperor Alexis Comnenus learned with dismay that other armies of crusaders
would soon follow that which was already so large. It was not long before
Bohemond and Raymond appeared. Alexis behaved towards these formidable
allies with a mixture of pusillanimity and haughtiness, promises and lies,
caresses and hostility, which irritated without intimidating them, and
rendered it impossible for them to feel any confidence or conceive any
esteem. At one time he was thanking them profusely for the support they
were bringing him against the infidels; at another he was sending troops
to harass them on their road, and, when they reached Constantinople, he
demanded that they should swear fealty and obedience to him, as if they
were his own subjects. One day he was refusing them provisions and
attempting to subdue them by famine; and the next he was lavishing feasts
and presents upon them. The crusaders, on their side, when provisions fell
short, spread themselves over the country and plundered it without
scruple; and, when they encountered hostile troops of Greeks, charged them
without warning. When the emperor demanded of them fealty and homage, the
count of Toulouse answered that he had not come to the East in search of a
master. Godfrey do Bouillon, after resisting every haughty pretension,
being as just as he was dignified, acknowledged that the crusaders ought
to restore to the emperor the towns which had belonged to the empire, and
an arrangement to that effect was concluded between them. Bohemond had a
proposal submitted to Godfrey to join him in attacking the Greek empire
and taking possession at once of Byzantium; but Godfrey rejected the
proposal, with the reminder that he had come only to fight the infidels.
The emperor, fully informed of the greediness as well as ambition of
Bohemond, introduced him one day into a room full of treasures. “Here,”
said Bohemond, “is wherewith to conquer kingdoms.” Alexis had the
treasures removed to Bohemond’s, who at first refused, and ended by
accepting them. It is even said that he asked the emperor for the title of
Grand Domestic or of General of the Empire of the East. Alexis, who had
held that dignity and who knew that it was the way to the throne, gave the
Norman chieftain a present refusal, with a promise of it on account of
future services to be rendered by him to the empire and the emperor.
The chiefs of the crusade were not alone in treating with disdain this
haughty, wily, and feeble sovereign. During a ceremony at which some
French princes were doing homage to the emperor, a Count Robert of Paris
went and sat down free-and-easily beside him; when Baldwin, count of
Hainault, took the intruder by the arm, saying, “When you are in a country
you must respect its masters and its customs.” “Verily,” answered Robert,
“I hold it shocking that this jackanapes should be seated, whilst so many
noble captains are standing yonder.” When the ceremony was over, the
emperor, who had, no doubt, heard the words, wished to have an
explanation; so he detained Robert, and asked him who and whence he was.
“I am a Frenchman,” quoth Robert; “and of noble birth. In my country there
is, hard by a church, a spot repaired to by such as burn to prove their
valor. I have been there often without any one’s daring to present himself
before me.” The emperor did not care to take up this sort of challenge,
and contented himself with replying to the warrior, “If you there waited
for foes without finding any, you are now about to have what will satisfy
you. I have, however, a piece of advice to give you; don’t put yourself at
the head or the tail of the army; keep in the middle. I have learned how
to fight with Turks; and that is the best place you can choose.” The
crusaders and the Greeks were mutually contemptuous, the former with a
ruffianly pride, the latter with an ironical and timid refinement.
This posture, on either side, of inactivity, ill-will, and irritation,
could not last long. On the approach of the spring of 1097, the crusader
chiefs and their troops, first Godfrey de Bouillon, then Bohemond and
Tancred, and afterwards Count Raymond of Toulouse, passed the Bosphorus,
being conveyed across either in their own vessels or those of the Emperor
Alexis, who encouraged them against the infidels, and at the same time had
the infidels supplied with information most damaging to the crusaders.
Having effected a junction in Bithynia, the Christian chiefs resolved to
go and lay siege to Nicaea, the first place, of importance, in possession
of the Turks. Whilst marching towards the place they saw coming to meet
then, with every appearance of the most woful destitution, Peter the
Hermit, followed by a small band of pilgrims escaped from the disasters of
their expedition, who had passed the winter, as he had, in Bithynia,
waiting for more fortunate crusaders. Peter, affectionately welcomed by
the chiefs of the army, recounted to them “in detail,” says William of
Tyre, “how the people, who had preceded them under his guidance, had shown
themselves destitute of intelligence, improvident, and unmanageable at the
same time; and so it was far more by their own fault than by the deed of
any other that they had succumbed to the weight of their calamities.”
Peter, having thus relieved his heart and recovered his hopes, joined the
powerful army of crusaders who had come at last; and, on the 15th of May,
1097, the siege of Nicaea began.
The town was in the hands of a Turkish sultan, Kilidge-Arslan, whose
father, Soliman, twenty years before, had invaded Bithynia and fixed his
abode at Nicrea. He, being informed of the approach of the crusaders, had
issued forth, to go and assemble all his forces; but he had left behind
his wife, his children, and his treasures, and he had sent messengers to
the inhabitants, saying, “Be of good courage, and fear not the barbarous
people who make show of besieging our city; to-morrow, before the seventh
hour of the day, ye shall be delivered from your enemies.” And he did
arrive on the 16th of May, says the Armenian historian, Matthias of
Edessa, at the head of six hundred thousand horsemen. The historians of
the crusaders are infinitely more moderate as to the number of their foes;
they assign to Kilidge-Arslan only fifty or sixty thousand men, and their
testimony is far more trustworthy, being that of the victors. In any case,
the Christians and the Turks fought valiantly for two days under the walls
of Niccea, and Godfrey de Bouillon did justice to his fame for valor and
skill by laying low a Turk “remarkable amongst all,” says William of Tyre,
“for his size and strength, whose arrows caused much havoc in the ranks of
our men.” Kilidge-Arslan, being beaten, withdrew to collect fresh troops,
and, after six weeks’ siege, the crusaders believed themselves on the
point of entering Nicaea as masters, when, on the 26th of June, they saw
floating on the ramparts the standard of the Emperor Alexis. Their
surprise was the greater in that they had just written to the emperor to
say that the city was on the point of surrendering, and they added, “We
earnestly invite you to lose no time in sending some of your princes with
sufficient retinue, that they may receive and keep in honor of your name
the city which will deliver itself up to us. As for us, after having put
it in the hands of your highness, we will not show any delay in pursuing,
with God’s help, the execution of our projects.” Alexis had anticipated
this loyal message. Being in constant secret communication with the former
subjects of the Greek empire, and often even with their new masters the
Turks, his agents in Nicaea had induced the inhabitants to surrender to
him, and not to the Latins, who would treat them as vanquished. The
irritation amongst the crusaders was extreme. They had promised
themselves, if not the plunder of Nicaea, at any rate great advantages
from their victory; and it was said in the camp that the convention
concluded with the emperor contained an article purporting that “if, with
God’s help, there were taken any of the towns which had belonged aforetime
to the Greek empire all along the line of march up to Syria, the town
should be restored to the emperor, together with all the adjacent
territory and that the booty, the spoils, and all objects whatsoever found
therein should be given up without discussion to the crusader in
recompense for their trouble and indemnification for the expenses.” The
wrath waxed still fiercer when it was know that the crusaders would not be
permitted to enter more the ten at a time the town they had just taken,
and that the Emperor Alexis had set at liberty the wife of Pilidge-Arslai
together with her two sons and all the Turks led prisoners of war to
Constantinople. The chiefs of the crusaders were then selves indignant and
distrustful; but “they resolved with on accord,” says William of Tyre, “to
hide their resentment, and they applied all their efforts to calming their
people, while encouraging them to push on without delay to the end of the
glorious enterprise.”
All the army of the crusaders put themselves in motion I cross Asia Minor
from the north-west to the south-east, and to reach Syria. At their
arrival before Nicaea they numbered, it is said, five hundred thousand
foot and one hundred thousand horse, figures evidently too great, for
everything indicates that at the opening of the crusade the three great
armies, starting from France and Italy under Godfrey de Bouillon, Bohemond
and Raymond of Toulouse, did not reach this number, and the, had certainly
lost many during their long march through their sufferings and in their
battles. However that may be, after they had marched all in one mass for
two days, and had then extended themselves over a larger area, for the
purpose, no doubt, of more easily finding provisions, the crusaders broke
up into two main bodies, led, one by Godfrey de Bouillon and Raymond of
Toulouse, the other by Bohemond and Tancred. On the 1st of July, at
daybreak, this latter body, encamped at a short distance from Doryleum, in
Phrygia, saw descending from the neighboring heights a cloud of enemies
who burst upon the Christians, first rained a perfect hail of missiles
upon them, and then penetrated into their camp, even to the tents assigned
to the women, children, and old men, the numerous following of the
crusaders. It was Kilidge-Arslan, who, after the fall of Nicaea, had
raised this new army of Saracens, and was pursuing the conquerors on their
march. The battle began in great disorder; the chiefs in person sustained
the first shock; and the duke of Normandy, Robert Shorthose, took in his
hand his white banner, embroidered with gold, and waving it over his head,
threw himself upon the Turks, shouting, “God willeth it! God willeth it!”
Bohemond obstinately sought out Kilidge-Arslan in the fray; but at the
same time he sent messengers in all haste to Godfrey de Bouillon, as yet
but a little way off, to summon him to their aid. Godfrey galloped up,
and, with some fifty of his knights, preceding the rest of his army, was
the first to throw himself into the midst of the Turks. Towards mid-day
the whole of the first body arrived, with standards flying, with the sound
of trumpets and with the shouting of warriors. Kilidge-Arslan and his
troops fell back upon the heights whence they had descended. The
crusaders, without taking breath, ascended in pursuit. The Turks saw
themselves shut in by a forest of lances, and fled over wood and rock; and
“two days afterwards they were still flying,” says Albert of Aix, “though
none pursued them, unless it were God himself.” The victory of Doryleum
opened the whole country to the crusaders, and they resumed their march
towards Syria, paying their sole attention to not separating again.
It was not long before they had to grapple with other dangers against
which bravery could do nothing. They were crossing, under a broiling sun,
deserted tracts which their enemies had taken good care to ravage. Water
and forage were not to be had; the men suffered intolerably from thirst;
horses died by hundreds; at the head of their troops marched knights
mounted on asses or oxen; their favorite amusement, the chase, became
impossible for them; for their hawking-birds too—the falcons and
gerfalcons they had brought with them—languished and died beneath
the excessive heat. One incident obtained for the crusaders a momentary
relief. The dogs which followed the army, prowling in all directions, one
day returned with their paws and coats wet; they had, therefore, found
water; and the soldiers set themselves to look for it, and, in fact,
discovered a small river in a remote valley. They got water-drunk, and
more than three hundred men, it is said, were affected by it and died.
On arriving in Pisidia, a country intersected by Water-courses, meadows,
and woods, the army rested several days; but at that very point two of its
most competent and most respected chiefs were very nearly taken from it.
Count Raymond of Toulouse, who was also called Raymond of Saint- Gilles,
fell so ill that the bishop of Orange was reading over him the prayers for
the dying, when one of those present cried out that the count would
assuredly live, for that the prayers of his patron saint, Gilles, had
obtained for him a truce with death. And Raymond recovered. Godfrey de
Bouillon, again, whilst riding in a forest, came upon a pilgrim attacked
by a bear, and all but fallen a victim to the ferocious beast. The duke
drew his sword and urged his horse against the bear, which, leaving the
pilgrim, rushed upon the assailant. The frightened horse reared; Godfrey
was thrown, and, according to one account, immediately remounted; but,
according to another, he fell, on the contrary, together with his horse;
however, he sustained a fearful struggle against the bear, and ultimately
killed it by plunging his sword up to the hilt into its belly, says
‘William of Tyre, but with so great an effort, and after receiving so
serious a wound, that his soldiers, hurrying up at the pilgrim’s report,
found him stretched on the ground, covered with blood, and unable to rise,
and carried him back to the camp, where he was, for several weeks, obliged
to be carried about in a litter in the rear of the army.
Through all these perils they continued to advance, and they were
approaching the heights of Taurus, the bulwark and gate of Syria, when a
quarrel which arose between two of the principal crusader chiefs was like
to seriously endanger the concord and strength of the army. Tancred, with
his men, had entered Tarsus, the birthplace of St. Paul, and had planted
his flag there. Although later in his arrival, Baldwin, brother of Godfrey
de Bouillon, claimed a right to the possession of the city, and had his
flag set up instead of Tancred’s, which was thrown into a ditch. During
several days the strife was fierce and even bloody; the soldiers of
Baldwin were the more numerous, and those of Tancred considered their
chief too gentle, and his bravery, so often proved, scarcely sufficed to
form an excuse for his forbearance. Chiefs and soldiers, however, at last,
saw the necessity for reconciliation, and made mutual promises to sink all
animosity. On returning to the general camp, Tancred was received with
marked favor; for the majority of the crusaders, being unconcerned in the
quarrel at Tarsus, liked him for his bravery and for his gentleness
equally. Baldwin, on the contrary, was much blamed, even by his brother
Godfrey; but he was far more ambitious on his own account than devoted to
the common cause. He had often heard tell of Armenia and Mesopotamia,
their riches and the large number of Christians living there, almost
equally independent of Greeks and Turks; and, in the hope of finding there
a chance of greatly improving his personal fortunes, he left the army of
the crusaders at Maresa, on the very eve of the day on which the chiefs
came to the decision that no one should for the future move away from the
flag, and taking with him a weak detachment of two hundred horse and one
thousand or twelve hundred foot, marched towards Armenia. His name and his
presence soon made a stir there; and he got hold of two little towns which
received him eagerly. Edessa, the capital of Armenia and metropolis of
Mesopotamia, was peopled by Christians; and a Greek governor, sent from
Constantinople by the emperor, lived there, on payment of a tribute to the
Turks. Internal dissensions and the fear ever inspired by the vicinity of
the Turks kept the city in a state of lively agitation; and bishop,
people, and Greek governor, all appealed to Baldwin. He presented himself
before Edessa with merely a hundred horsemen, having left the remainder of
his forces in garrison at the town he had already occupied. All the
population came to meet him, bearing branches of olive and singing chants
in honor of their deliverer. But it was not long before outbreaks and
alarms began again; and Baldwin looked on at then, waiting for power to be
offered him. Still there was no advance; the Greek governor continued
where be was; and Baldwin muttered threats of his departure. The popular
disquietude was extreme; and the Greek governor, old and detested as he
was, thought to smooth all by adopting the Latin chief and making him his
heir. This, however, caused but a short respite; Baldwin left the governor
to be massacred in a fresh outbreak; the people came and offered him the
government, and he became Prince of Edessa, and, ere long, of all the
neighboring country, without thinking any more of Jerusalem, of which,
nevertheless, he was destined at no distant day to be king.
Whilst Baldwin was thus acquiring, for himself and himself alone, the
first Latin principality belonging to the crusaders in the East, his
brother Godfrey and the main Christian army were crossing the chain of
Taurus and arriving before Antioch, the capital of Syria. Great was the
fame, with Pagans and Christians, of this city; its site, the beauty of
its climate, the fertility of its land, its fish-abounding lake, its river
of Orontes, its fountain of Daphne, its festivals, and its morals, had
made it, under the Roman empire, a brilliant and favorite abode. At the
same time, it was there that the disciples of Jesus had assumed the name
of Christians, and that St. Paul had begun his heroic life as preacher and
as missionary. It was absolutely necessary that the crusaders should take
Antioch; but the difficulty of the conquest was equal to the importance.
The city was well fortified and provided with a strong citadel; the Turks
had been in possession of it for fourteen years; and its governor Accien
or Baghisian (Yagui-Sian, or brother of black, according to
Oriental historians), appointed by the sultan of Persia, Malekschah, was
shut up in it with seven thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. The
first attacks of the Christians failed; and they had the prospect of a
long siege. At the outset their situation had been easy and pleasant; they
encountered no hostility from the country-people, who were intimidated or
indifferent; they came and paid visits to the camp, and admitted the
crusaders to their markets; the harvests, which were hardly finished, had
been abundant: “the grapes,” says Guibert of Nogent, “were still hanging
on the branches of the vines; on all sides discoveries were made of grain
shut up, not in barns, but in subterranean vaults; and the trees were
laden with fruit.” These facilities of existence, the softness of the
climate, the pleasantness of the places, the frequency of leisure, partly
pleasure and partly care-for-nothingness, caused amongst the crusaders
irregularity, license, indiscipline, carelessness, and often perils and
reverses. The Turks profited thereby to make sallies, which threw the camp
into confusion and cost the lives of crusaders surprised or scattered
about. Winter came; provisions grew scarce, and had to be sought at a
greater distance and at greater peril; and living ceased to be agreeable
or easy. Disquietude, doubts concerning the success of the enterprise,
fatigue and discouragement made way amongst the army; and men who were
believed to be proved, Robert Shorthose, duke of Normandy, William,
viscount of Melun, called the Carpenter, on account of his mighty
battle-axe, and Peter the Hermit himself, “who had never learned,” says
Robert the monk, “to endure such plaguy hunger,” left the camp and
deserted the banner of the cross, “that there might be seen, in the words
of the Apocalypse, even the stars falling from heaven,” says Guibert of
Nogent. Great were the scandal and the indignation. Tancred hurried after
the fugitives and brought then back; and they swore on the Gospel never
again to abandon the cause which they had preached and served so well. It
was clearly indispensable to take measures for restoring amongst the army
discipline, confidence, and the morals and hopes of Christians. The
different chiefs applied themselves thereto by very different processes,
according to their vocation, character, or habits. Adhdmar, bishop of Puy,
the renowned spiritual chief of the crusade, Godfrey de Bouillon, Raymond
of Toulouse, and the military chieftains renowned for piety and virtue
made head against all kinds of disorder either by fervent addresses or
severe prohibitions. Men caught drunk had their hair cut off; blasphemous
and reckless gamesters were branded with a red-hot iron; and the women
were shut up in separate tents. To the irregularities within were added
the perils of incessant espionage on the part of the Turks in the very
camp of the crusaders: and no one knew how to repress this evil. “Brethren
and lords,” said Bohemond to the assembled princes, “let me undertake this
business by myself; I hope, with God’s help, to find a remedy for this
complaint.” Caring but little for moral reform, he strove to strike terror
into the Turks, and, by counteraction, restore confidence to the
crusaders. “One evening,” says William of Tyre, “whilst everybody was, as
usual, occupied in getting supper ready, Bohemond ordered some Turks who
had been caught in the camp to be brought out of prison and put to death
forthwith; and then, having had a huge fire lighted, he gave instructions
that they should be roasted and carefully prepared as if for being eaten.
If it should be asked what operation was going on, he commanded his people
to answer, ‘The princes and governors of the camp this day decreed at
their council that all Turks or their spies who should henceforth be found
in the camp should be forced, after this fashion, to furnish meat of their
own carcasses to the princes as well as to the whole army!’” “The whole
city of Antioch,” adds the historian, “was stricken with terror at hearing
the report of words so strange and a deed so cruel. And thus, by the act
and pains of Bohemond, the camp was purged of this pest of spies, and the
results of the princes’ meetings were much less known amongst the foe.”
Bohemond did not confine himself to terrifying the Turks by the display of
his barbarities; he sought and found traitors amongst them. During the
incidents of the siege he had concocted certain relations with an
inhabitant of Antioch, named Ferouz or Emir-Feir, probably a renegade
Christian and seeming Mussulman, in favor with the Governor Accien or
Baghisian, who had intrusted to him, him and his family, the ward of three
of the towers and gates of the city. Emir-Feir, whether from religious
remorse or on promise of a rich recompense, had, after the ambiguous and
tortuous conversations which usually precede treason, made an offer to
Bohemond to open to him, and, through him, to the crusaders, the entrance
into Antioch. Bohemond, in covert terms, informed the chiefs, his
comrades, of this proposal, leaving it to be understood that, if the
capture of Antioch were the result of his efforts, it would be for him to
become its lord. The count of Toulouse bluntly rejected this idea. “We be
all brethren,” said he, “and we have all run the same risk; I did not
leave my own country, and face, I and mine, so many dangers to conquer new
lord-ships for any particular one of us.” The opinion of Raymond
prevailed, and Bohemond pressed the matter no more that day. But the
situation became more and more urgent; and armies of Mussulmans were
preparing to come to the aid of Antioch. When these fresh alarms spread
through the camp, Bohemond returned to the charge, saying, “Time presses;
and if ye accept the overtures made to us, to-morrow Antioch will be ours,
and we shall march in triumph on Jerusalem. If any find a better way of
assuring our success, I am ready to accept it and renounce, on my own
account, all conquest.” Raymond still persisted in his opposition; but all
the other chiefs submitted to the overtures and conditions of Bohemond.
All proper measures were taken, and Emir-Fein, being apprised thereof, had
Bohemond informed that on the following night everything would be ready.
At the appointed hour three-score warriors, with Bohemond at their head,
repaired noiselessly to the foot of the tower indicated; a ladder was
hoisted and Emir-Feir fastened it firmly to the top of the wall. Bohemond
looked round and round, but no one was in a hurry to mount. Bohemond,
therefore, himself mounted; and, having received recognition from
Emir-Fein, he leaned upon the ramparts, called in a low voice to his
comrades, and rapidly re-descended to reassure them and get them to mount
with him. Up they mount; that and two other neighboring towers are given
up to them; the three gates are opened, and the crusaders rush in. When
day appeared, on the 3d of June, 1098, the streets of Antioch were full of
corpses; for the Turks, surprised, had been slaughtered without resistance
or had fled into the country. The citadel, filled with those who had been
able to take refuge there, still held out; but the entire city was in the
power of the crusaders, and the banner of Bohemond floated on an elevated
spot over against the citadel.
In spite of their triumph the crusaders were not so near marching on
Jerusalem as Bohemond had promised. Everywhere, throughout Syria and
Mesopotamia, the Mussulmans were rising to go and deliver Antioch; an
immense army was already in motion; there were eleven hundred thousand men
according to Matthew of Edessa, six hundred and sixty thousand according
to Foucher of Chartres, three hundred thousand according to Raoul of Caen,
and only two hundred thousand according to William of Tyre and Albert of
Aix. The discrepancy in the figures is a sufficient proof of their
untruthfulness. The last number was enough to disquiet the crusaders,
already much reduced by so many marches, battles, sufferings, and
desertions. An old Mussulman warrior, celebrated at that time throughout
Western Asia, Corbogha, sultan of Mossoul (hard by what was ancient
Nineveh), commanded all the hostile forces, and four days after the
capture of Antioch he was already completely round the place, enclosing
the crusaders within the walls of which they had just become the masters.
They were thus and all on a sudden besieged in their turn, having even in
the very midst of them, in the citadel which still held out, a hostile
force. Whilst they had been besieging Antioch, the Emperor Alexis Comnenus
had begun to march with an army to get his share in their successes, and
was advancing into Asia Minor when he heard that the Mussulmans, in
immense numbers, were investing the Christian army in Antioch, and not in
a condition, it was said, to hold out long. The emperor immediately
retraced his steps towards Constantinople, and the crusaders found that
they had no Greek aid to hope for. The blockade, becoming stricter day by
day, soon brought about a horrible famine in Antioch. Instead of repeating
here, in general terms, the ordinary descriptions of this cruel scourge,
we will reproduce its particular and striking features as they have been
traced out by contemporary chroniclers. “The Christian people,” says
William of Tyre, “had recourse before long, to procure themselves any food
whatever, to all sorts of shameful means. Nobles, free men, did not blush
to hungrily stretch out the hand to nobodies, asking with troublesome
pertinacity for what was too often refused. There were seen the very
strongest, those whom their signal valor had rendered illustrious in the
midst of the army, now supported on crutches, dragging themselves
half-dead along the streets and in the public places; and, if they did not
speak, at any rate they showed themselves, with countenances
irrecognizable, silently begging alms of every passer-by. No self-respect
restrained matrons or young women heretofore accustomed to severe
restraints; they walked hither and thither, with pallid faces, groaning
and searching everywhere for somewhat to eat; and they in whom the pangs
of hunger had not extinguished every spark of modesty went and hid
themselves in the most secret places, and gnawed their hearts in silence,
preferring to die of want rather than beg in public. Children still in the
cradle, unable to get milk, were exposed at the cross-roads, crying in
vain for their usual nourishment; and men, women, and children, all threw
themselves greedily upon any kind of food, wholesome and unwholesome,
clean and unclean, that they could scrape together here and there, and
none shared with another that which they picked up.” So many and such
sufferings produced incredible dastardliness; and deserters escaped by
night, in some cases throwing themselves down, at the risk of being
killed, into the city-moat; in others getting down by help of a rope from
the ramparts. Indignation blazed forth against the fugitives; they were
called rope-dancers; and God was prayed to treat them as the traitor
Judas. William of Tyre and Guibert of Nogent, after naming some, and those
the very highest, end with these words: “Of many more I know not the
names, and I am unwilling to expose all that are well known to me.”
“We are assured,” says William of Tyre, “that in view of such woes and
such weaknesses, the princes, despairing of any means of safety, held
amongst themselves a secret council, at which they decided to abandon the
army and all the people, fly in the middle of the night, and retreat to
the sea.” According to the Armenian historian Matthew of Edessa, the
princes would seem to have resolved, in this hour of dejection, not to fly
and leave the army to its fate, but “to demand of Corboghzi an assurance
for all, under the bond of an oath, of personal safety, on the promise of
surrendering Antioch to him; after which they would return home.” Several
Arab historians, and amongst them Ibn-el-Athir, Aboul- Faradje, and
Aboul-Feda confirm the statement of conditions. Whatever may have been the
real turn taken by the promptings of weakness amongst the Christians,
Godfrey de Bouillon and Adhemar, bishop of Puy, energetically rejected
them all; and an unexpected incident, considered as miraculous, reassured
the wavering spirits both of soldiers and of chiefs. A priest of
Marseilles, Peter Bartholomew, came and announced to the chiefs that St.
Andrew had thrice appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Go into the church
of my brother Peter at Antioch; and hard by the high altar thou wilt find,
on digging up the ground, the head of the spear which pierced our
Redeemer’s side. That, carried in front of the army, will bring about the
deliverance of the Christians.” The appointed search was solemnly
conducted under the eye of twelve reputable witnesses, priests and
knights; the whole army was in attendance at the closed gates of the
church; the spear-head was found and carried off in triumph; a pious
enthusiasm restored to all present entire confidence; and with loud shouts
they demanded battle. The chiefs judged it proper to announce their
determination to the chief of the Mussulmans; and for this mission they
chose Peter the Hermit, who was known to them as a bold and able speaker.
Peter, on arriving at the enemy’s camp, presented himself without any mark
of respect before the Sultan, Corbogha, surrounded by his satraps, and
said, “The sacred assembly of princes pleasing to God who are at Antioch
doth send me unto thy Highness, to advise thee that thou art to cease from
thy importunities, and that thou abandon the siege of a city which the
Lord in His divine mercy hath given up to them. The prince of the apostles
did wrest that city from idolatry, and convert it to the faith of Christ.
Ye had forcibly but unjustly taken possession of it. They who be moved by
a right lawful anxiety for this heritage of their ancestors make their
demand of thee that thou choose between divers offers: either give up the
siege of the city, and cease troubling the Christians, or, within three
days from hence, try the power of our arms. And that thou seek not after
any, even a lawful, subterfuge, they offer thee further choice between
divers determinations: either appear alone in person to fight with one of
our princes, in order that, if victorious, thou mayest obtain all thou
canst demand, or, if vanquished, thou mayest remain quiet; or, again, pick
out divers of thine who shall fight, on the same terms, with the same
number of ours; or, lastly, agree that the two armies shall prove, one
against the other, the fortune of battle.” “Peter,” answered Corbogha
ironically, “it is not likely that the affairs of the princes who have
sent thee be in such state that they can thus offer me choice betwixt
divers proposals, and that I should be bound to accept that which may suit
me best. My sword hath brought them to such a condition that they have not
themselves any longer the power of choosing freely, and that they be
constrained to shape and unshape their wishes according to my good
pleasure. Go, then, and tell these fools that all whom I shall find in
full possession of all the powers of the manly age shall have their lives,
and shall be reserved by me for my master’s service, and that all other
shall fall beneath my sword, as useless trees, so that there shall remain
of them not even a faint remembrance. Had I not deemed it more convenient
to destroy them by famine than to smite them with the sword, I should
already have gotten forcible mastery of the city, and they would have
reaped the fruits of their voyage hither by undergoing the law of
vengeance.”
On returning to camp, Peter the Hermit was about to set forth in detail,
before all the people of the crusaders, the answer of Corbogha, his pride,
his threats, and the pomp with which he was surrounded; but Godfrey de
Bouillon, “fearing lest the multitude, already crushed beneath the weight
of their woes, should be stricken with fresh terror,” stopped Peter at the
moment when he was about to begin his speech, and, taking him aside,
prevailed upon him to tell the result of his mission in a few words, just
that the Turks desired battle, and that it must be prepared for at once.
“Forthwith all, from the highest to the lowest, testify the most eager
desire to measure swords with the infidels, and seem to have completely
forgotten their miseries, and to calculate upon victory. All resume their
arms, and get ready their horses, their breastplates, their helmets, their
shields, and their swords. It is publicly announced throughout the city
that the next morning, before sunrise, every one will have to be in
readiness, and join his host to follow faithfully the banner of his
prince.”
Next day, accordingly, the 28th of June, 1098, the feast of St. Peter and
St. Paul, the whole Christian army issued from their camp, with a portion
of the clergy marching at their head, and chanting the 68th Psalm, “Let
God arise, and let His enemies be scattered!” “I saw these things, I who
speak,” says one of the chroniclers, Raymond d’Agiles, chaplain to the
count of Toulouse: “I was there, and I carried the spear of the Lord.” The
crusaders formed in twelve divisions; and, of all their great chiefs, the
count of Toulouse alone was unable to assume the command of his; he was
detained in Antioch by the consequences of a wound, and he had the duty of
keeping in check the Turkish garrison, still masters of the citadel. The
crusaders presented the appearance of old troops ill clad, ill provided,
and surmounting by sheer spirit the fatigues and losses of a long war;
many sick soldiers could scarcely march; many barons and knights were on
foot; and Godfrey de Bouillon himself had been obliged to borrow a horse
from the count of Toulouse. During the march a gentle rain refreshed souls
as well as bodies, and was regarded as a favor from heaven. Just as the
battle was commencing, Corbogha, struck by the impassioned, stern, and
indomitable aspect of the crusaders, felt somewhat disquieted, and made
proposals, it is said, to the Christian princes of what he had refused
them the evening before—a fight between some of their knights and as
many Saracens; but they in their turn rejected the proposition. There is a
moment, during great struggles, when the souls of men are launched forth
like bomb-shells, which nothing can stop or cause to recoil. The battle
was long, stubborn, and, at some points, indecisive: Kilidge-Arslan, the
indefatigable sultan of Nicaea, attacked Bohemond so briskly, that, save
for the prompt assistance of Godfrey de Bouillon and Tancred, the prince
of Antioch had been in great peril. But the pious and warlike enthusiasm
of the crusaders at length prevailed over the savage bravery of the Turks;
and Corbogha, who had promised the khalif of Bagdad a defeat of the
Christians, fled away towards the Euphrates with a weak escort of faithful
troops. Tancred pursued till nightfall the sultans of Aleppo and Damascus
and the emir of Jerusalem. According to the Christian chroniclers, one
hundred thousand infidels, and only four thousand crusaders, were left on
the field of battle. The camp of the Turks was given over to pillage; and
fifteen thousand camels, and it is not stated how many horses, were
carried off. The tent of Corbogha himself was, for his conquerors, a rich
prize and an object of admiration. It was laid out in streets, flanked by
towers, as if it were a fortified town; gold and precious stones glittered
in every part of it; it was capable of containing more than two thousand
persons; and Bohemond sent it to Italy, where it was long preserved. The
conquerors employed several days in conveying into Antioch the spoils of
the vanquished; and “every crusader,” says Albert of Aix, “found himself
richer than he had been at starting from Europe.”
This great success, with the wealth it was the means of spreading, and the
pretensions and hopes it was the cause of raising amongst the crusaders,
had for some time the most injurious effects. Division set in amongst
them, especially amongst the chiefs. Some abandoned themselves to all the
license of victory, others to the sweets of repose. Some, fatigued and
disgusted, quietly prepared for and accomplished their return home;
others, growing more and more ambitious and bold, aspired to conquests and
principalities in the East. Why should not they acquire what Baldwin had
acquired at Edessa, and what Bohemond was within an ace of possessing at
Antioch? Others were jealous of the great fortunes made before their eyes:
and Raymond of Toulouse was vexed at Bohemond’s rule in Antioch, and
refused to give up to him the citadel. One and another troubled themselves
little more about the main end of their crusade, the deliverance of
Jerusalem, and devoted themselves to their personal interests. A few days
after the defeat of the Turks, the council of princes deliberated upon the
question of marching immediately upon Jerusalem, and then all these
various inclinations came out. After a lively debate, the majority decided
that they should wait till the heat of summer was over, the army rested
from its fatigues, and the reinforcements expected from the West arrived.
The common sort of crusaders were indignant at this delay: “Since the
princes will not lead us to Jerusalem,” was said aloud, “choose we among
the knights a brave man who will serve us faithfully, and, if the grace of
God be with us, go we under his leading to Jerusalem. It is not enough for
our princes that we have remained here a whole year, and that two hundred
thousand men-at- arms have fallen here! Perish all they who would remain
at Antioch, even as its inhabitants but lately perished!” But, murmuring
all the while, they staid at Antioch, in spite of a violent epidemic,
which took off, it was said, in a single month, fifty thousand persons,
and amongst them the spiritual chief of the crusade, Adhemar, bishop of
Puy, who had the respect and confidence of all the crusaders. To find some
specious pretext, or some pious excuse for this inactivity, or simply to
pass the time which was not employed as it had been sworn it should be,
war-like expeditions were made into Syria and Mesopotamia; some emirs were
driven from their petty dominions; some towns were taken; some infidels
were massacred. The count of Toulouse persisted during several weeks in
besieging Marrah, a town situated between Hamath and Aleppo. At last he
took it, but there were no longer any inhabitants to be found in it; they
had all taken refuge under ground. Huge fires lighted at the entrance of
their hiding-place forced them to come out, and as they came they were all
put to death or carried off as slaves; “which so terrified the neighboring
towns,” says a chronicler, “that they yielded of their own free will and
without compulsion.”
It was all at once ascertained that Jerusalem had undergone a fresh
calamity, and fallen more and more beneath the yoke of the infidels.
Abou-Kacem, khalif of Egypt, had taken it from the Turks; and his vizier,
Afdhel, had left a strong garrison in it. A sharp pang of grief, of wrath,
and of shame shot through the crusaders. “Could it be,” they cried, “that
Jerusalem should be taken and retaken, and never by Christians?” Many went
to seek out the count of Toulouse. He was known to be much taken up with
the desire of securing the possession of Marrah, which he had just
captured; still great confidence was felt in him. He had made a vow never
to return to the West; he was the richest of the crusader princes; he was
conjured to take upon himself the leadership of the army; to him had been
intrusted the spear of the Lord discovered at Antioch; if the other
princes should be found wanting, let him at least go forward with the
people, in full assurance; if not, he had only to give up the spear to the
people, and the people would go right on to Jerusalem, with the Lord for
their leader. After some hesitation, Raymond declared that the departure
should take place in a fortnight, and he summoned the princes to a
preliminary meeting. On assembling “they found themselves still less at
one,” says the chronicler, and the majority refused to budge. To induce
them, it is said that Raymond offered ten thousand sous to Godfrey de
Bouillon, the same to Robert of Normandy, six thousand to the count of
Flanders, and five thousand to Tancred; but, at the same time, Raymond
announced his intention of leaving a strong garrison in Marrah to secure
its defence. “What!” cried the common folk amongst the crusaders,
“disputes about Antioch and disputes about Marrah! We will take good care
there be no quarrel touching this town; come, throw we down its walls;
restore we peace amongst the princes, and set we the count at liberty:
when Marrah no longer exists, he will no longer fear to lose it.” The
multitude rushed to surround Marrah, and worked so eagerly at the
demolition of its ramparts that the count of Toulouse, touched by this
popular feeling as if it were a proof of the divine will, himself put the
finishing touch to the work of destruction and ordered the speedy
departure of the army. At their head marched he, barefooted, with his
clergy and the bishop of Akbar, all imploring the mercy of God and the
protection of the saints. After him marched Tancred with forty knights and
many foot. “Who then may resist this people,” said Turks and Saracens one
to another, “so stubborn and cruel, whom, for the space of a year, nor
famine, nor the sword, nor any other danger could cause to abandon the
siege of Antioch, and who now are feeding upon human flesh?” In fact a
rumor had spread that, in their extreme distress for want of provisions,
the crusaders had eaten corpses of Saracens found in the moats of Marrah.
Several of the chiefs, hitherto undecided, now followed the popular
impulse, whilst others still hesitated. But on the approach of spring,
1099, more than eight months after the capture of Antioch, Godfrey of
Bouillon, his brother, Eustace of Boulogne, Robert of Flanders, and their
following, likewise began to march. Bohemond, after having accompanied
them as far as Laodicea, left them with a promise of rejoining them before
Jerusalem, and returned to Antioch, where he remained. Fresh crusaders
arrived from Flanders, Holland, and England, and amongst them the Saxon
prince, Edgar Atheling, who had for a brief interval been king of England,
between the death of Harold and the coronation of William the Conqueror.
The army pursued its way, pretty slowly, still stopping from time to time
to besiege towns, which they took and which the chiefs continued to
dispute for amongst themselves. Envoys from the khalif of Egypt, the new
holder of Jerusalem, arrived in the crusaders’ camp, with presents and
promises from their master. They had orders to offer forty thousand pieces
of gold to Godfrey, sixty thousand to Bohemond, the most dreaded by the
Mussulmans of all the crusaders, and other gifts to divers other chiefs.
Aboul-Kacem further promised liberty of pilgrimage and exercise of the
Christian religion in Jerusalem; only the Christians must not enter,
unless unarmed. At this proposal the crusader chiefs cried out with
indignation, and declared to the Egyptian envoys that they were going to
hasten their march upon Jerusalem, threatening at the same time to push
forward to the borders of the Nile. At the end of the month of flay, 1099,
they were all masse upon the frontiers of Phoenicia and Palestine,
numbering according to the most sanguine calculations, only fifty thousand
fighting men.
Upon entering Palestine, as they came upon spots known in sacred history
or places of any importance, the same feelings of greed and jealousy which
had caused so much trouble in Asia Minor and Syria caused divisions once
more amongst the crusaders. The chieftain, the simple warrior almost, who
was the first to enter city, or burgh, or house, and plant his flag there
halted in it and claimed to be its possessor; whilst those “whom nothing
was dearer than the commandments of God,” say the chroniclers, pursued
their march, barefooted, beneath the banner of the cross, deplored the
covetousness and the quarrels of their brethren. When the crusaders
arrived a Emmaus, some Christians of Bethlehem came and implore their aid
against the infidels. Tancred was there; and he, with the consent of
Godfrey, set out immediately, in the middle of the night, with a small
band of one hundred horsemen, and went and planted his own flag on the top
of the church at Bethlehem at the very hour at which the birth of Jesus
Christ had been announced to the shepherds of Judea. Next day, June 10th
1099, on advancing, at dawn of day, over the heights of Emmaus, the army
of the crusaders had, all at once, beneath their gaze the Holy City.
“Lo! Jerusalem appears in sight. Lo! every hand point, out Jerusalem. Lo!
a thousand voices are heard as one in salutation of Jerusalem.
“After the great, sweet joy which filled all hearts at this first glimpse
came a deep feeling of contrition, mingled with awful and reverential
affection. Each scarcely dared to raise the eye towards the city which had
been the chosen abode of Christ, where He died, was buried, and rose
again.
“In accents of humility, with words low spoken, with stifled sobs, with
sighs and tears, the pent-up yearnings of a people in joy and at the same
time in sorrow sent shivering through the air a murmur like that which is
heard in leafy forests what time the wind blows through the leaves, or
like the dull sound made by the sea which breaks upon the rocks, or hisses
as it foams over the beach.”
It was better to quote these beautiful stanzas from “Jerusalem Delivered”
than to reproduce the pompous and monotonous phrases of the chroniclers.
The genius of Tasso was capable of understanding and worthy to depict the
emotions of a Christian army at sight of the Jerusalem they had come to
deliver.
We will not pause over the purely military and technical details of the
siege. It was calculated that there were in the city twenty thousand armed
inhabitants and forty thousand men in garrison, the most valiant and most
fanatical Mussulmans that Egypt could furnish. According to William of
Tyre, the most judicious and the best informed of the contemporary
historians, “When the crusaders pitched their camp over against Jerusalem,
there had arrived there about forty thousand persons of both sexes, of
whom there were at the most twenty thousand foot, well equipped, and
fifteen hundred knights.” Raymond d’Agiles, chaplain to the count of
Toulouse, reduces still further to twelve thousand the number of foot
capable of bearing arms, and that of the knights to twelve or thirteen
hundred. This weak army was destitute of commissariat and the engines
necessary for such a siege. Before long it was a prey to the horrors of
thirst. “The neighborhood of Jerusalem,” says William of Tyre, “is arid;
and it is only at a considerable distance that there are to be found
rivulets, fountains, or wells of fresh water. Even these springs had been
filled up by the enemy a little before the arrival of our troops. The
crusaders issued from the camp secretly and in small detachments to look
for water in all directions; and just when they believed they had found
some hidden trickier, they saw themselves surrounded by a multitude of
folks engaged in the same search; disputes forthwith arose amongst them,
and they frequently came to blows. Horses, mules, asses, and cattle of all
kinds, consumed by heat and thirst, fell down and died; and their
carcasses, left here and there about the camp, tainted the air with a
pestilential smell.” Wood, iron, and all the materials needful for the
construction of siege machinery were as much to seek as water. But a
warlike and pious spirit made head against all. Trees were felled at a
great distance from Jerusalem; and scaling-towers were roughly
constructed, as well as engines for hurling the stones which were with
difficulty brought up within reach of the city. “All ye who read this,”
says Raymond d’Agiles, “think not that it was light labor; it was nigh a
mile from the spot where the engines, all dismounted, had to be
transported to that where they were remounted.” The knights protected
against the sallies of the besieged the workmen employed upon this work.
One day Tancred had gone alone to pray on the Mount of Olives and to gaze
upon the holy city, when five Mussulmans sallied forth and went to attack
him; he killed three of them, and the other two took to flight. There was
at one point of the city ramparts a ravine which had to be filled up to
make an approach; and the count of Toulouse had proclamation made that be
would give a denier to every one who would go and throw three stones into
it. In three days the ravine was filled up. After four weeks of labor and
preparation, the council of princes fixed a day for delivering the
assault; but as there had been quarrels between several of the chiefs,
and, notably, between the count of Toulouse and Tancred, it was resolved
that before the grand attack they should all be reconciled at a general
supplication, with solemn ceremonies, for divine aid. After a strict fast,
all the crusaders went forth armed from their quarters, and preceded by
their priests, bare-footed and chanting psalms, they moved, in slow
procession, round Jerusalem, halting at all places hallowed by some fact
in sacred history, listening to the discourses of their priests, and
raising eyes full of wrath at hearing the scoffs addressed to them by the
Saracens, and seeing the insults heaped upon certain crosses they had set
up and upon all the symbols of the Christian faith. “Ye see,” cried Peter
the Hermit; “ye hear the threats and blasphemies of the enemies of God.
Now this I swear to you by your faith; this I swear to you by the arms ye
carry: to-day these infidels be still full of pride and insolence, but
to-morrow they shall be frozen with fear; those mosques, which tower over
Christian ruins, shall serve for temples to the true God, and Jerusalem
shall hear no longer aught but the praises of the Lord.” The shouts of the
whole Christian army responded to the hopes of the apostle of the crusade;
and the crusaders returned to their quarters repeating the words of the
prophet Isaiah: “So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the West,
and His glory from the rising of the sun.”
On the 14th of July, 1099, at daybreak, the assault began at divers
points; and next day, Friday, the 15th of July, at three in the afternoon,
exactly at the hour at which, according to Holy Writ, Jesus Christ had
yielded up the ghost, saying, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My
spirit,” Jerusalem was completely in the hands of the crusaders. We have
no heart to dwell on the massacres which accompanied the victory so
clearly purchased by the conquerors. The historians, Latin or Oriental,
set down at seventy thousand the number of Mussulmans massacred on the
ramparts, in the mosques, in the streets, underground, and wherever they
had attempted to find refuge: a number exceeding that of the armed
inhabitants and the garrison of the city. Battle-madness, thirst for
vengeance, ferocity, brutality, greed, and every hateful passion were
satiated without scruple, in the name of their holy cause. When they were
weary of slaughter, “orders were given,” says Robert the monk, “to those
of the Saracens who remained alive and were reserved for slavery, to clean
the city, remove from it the dead, and purify it from all traces of such
fearful carnage. They promptly obeyed; removed, with tears, the dead;
erected outside the gates dead-houses fashioned like citadels or defensive
buildings; collected in baskets dissevered limbs; carried them away, and
washed off the blood that stained the floors of temples and houses.”
Eight or ten days after the capture of Jerusalem, the crusader chiefs
assembled to deliberate upon the election of a king of their prize. There
were several who were suggested for it and might have pretended to it.
Robert Shorthose, duke of Normandy, gave an absolute refusal, “liking
better,” says an English chronicler, “to give himself up to repose and
indolence in Normandy than to serve, as a soldier, the King of kings: for
which God never forgave him.” Raymond, count of Toulouse, was already
advanced in years, and declared “that he would have a horror of bearing
the name of king in Jerusalem, but that he would give his consent to the
election of anyone else.” Tancred was and wished to be only the first of
knights. Godfrey de Bouillon the more easily united votes in that he did
not seek them. He was valiant, discreet, worthy, and modest; and his own
servants, being privately sounded, testified to his possession of the
virtues which are put in practice without any show. He was elected King of
Jerusalem, and he accepted the burden whilst refusing the insignia. “I
will never wear a crown of gold,” he said, “in the place where the Saviour
of the world was crowned with thorns.” And he assumed only the title of
Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre.
It is a common belief amongst historians that after the capture of
Jerusalem, and the election of her king, Peter the Hermit entirely
disappeared from history. It is true that he no longer played an active
part, and that, on returning to Europe, he went into retirement near Huy,
in the diocese of Lige, where he founded a monastery, and where he died on
the 11th of July, 1115. But William of Tyre bears witness that Peter’s
contemporaries were not ungrateful to him, and did not forget him when he
had done his work. “The faithful,” says he, “dwellers at Jerusalem, who,
four or five years before had seen the venerable Peter there, recognizing
at that time in the same city him to whom the patriarch had committed
letters invoking the aid of the princes of the West, bent the knee before
him, and offered him their respects in all humility. They recalled to mind
the circumstances of his first voyage; and they praised the Lord who had
endowed him with effectual power of speech and with strength to rouse up
nations and kings to bear so many and such long toils for love of the name
of Christ. Both in private and in public all the faithful at Jerusalem
exerted themselves to render to Peter the Hermit the highest honors, and
attributed to him alone, after God, their happiness in having escaped from
the hard servitude under which they had been for so many years groaning,
and in seeing the holy city recovering her ancient freedom.”
END OF VOLUME I.